Police arrested two men accused of stealing weapons from a Chester County gun shop, prompting a lockdown at nearby schools.
Police say Shane Wolf, 23, of Downingtown, Pennsylvania and Taylor O’Brien, 22, of Malvern, stole an undetermined amount of weapons from Chester County Outdoors on Lancaster Avenue in East Whiteland Township around 5 a.m. Tuesday.
East Whiteland Police officers who were responding to a separate incident spotted both suspects fleeing from the store, investigators said. Police arrested O’Brien near the General Warren Inn on Old Lancaster Road. As police continued to search for Wolf, nearby schools, including St. Patrick School on Channing Avenue, were placed on lockdown.
“The school was notified by the police that they should be in lockdown and all students if they hadn’t been to school should remain at home,” Sharon Alexander, a parent of students at St. Patrick, told NBC10.
After an extended search, police were able to capture Wolf in a yard just behind St. Patrick School, officials said. Bryan Scott lives near where Wolf was taken into custody and witnessed the arrest.
“It looked almost like a military truck, like a SWAT kind of truck,” Scott said. “There were tons of cars. I mean the police were all over the place. The state police helicopters were hovering around.”
Wolf and O’Brien were both taken into custody and police recovered all of the stolen weapons, investigators said.
Police say Wolf and O’Brien were the only people involved in the theft. They continue to investigate how they stole the weapons.
