photo by: Nick Krug

South Middle School students hang out on the patio outside the school after early release on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2017.

Chris Cobb, the former South Middle School teacher once accused of making racist comments in class, was arrested Thursday afternoon after a reportedly drunken outburst at the school.

South students and staff went on lockdown for about 10 minutes Thursday after a former employee, later confirmed as Cobb via Douglas County Jail records, turned up at the school unannounced and began making threatening comments toward staff. District spokeswoman Julie Boyle alerted parents in a phone message around 2 p.m. Thursday that police had removed the individual from the building.

No one was hurt in the incident, Boyle said. The seemingly drunk individual, whom Boyle did not identify by name, had been talking with a staff member in the school’s main office, reportedly using swear words and making threatening comments, she said.

Later, a spokeswoman with the Lawrence Police Department confirmed that officers were dispatched to South around 1:23 p.m. after reports of an individual being “disruptive” at the school. The incident was confined to the school’s main office, where staff intercepts visitors before granting access to the rest of the building.

One male subject — later confirmed to be Cobb — was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing, interference with duties of a police officer and disorderly conduct, Sgt. Amy Rhoads said in an email to the Journal-World. Rhoads said the individual was taken to the Douglas County Jail for booking.

Cobb, who taught sixth-grade social studies at South, was suspended with pay in fall 2016 after a parent complained that he had made racist comments during class. Administrators then launched an internal investigation into Cobb’s alleged remarks — the details of which were never revealed by the district — and eventually entered into a settlement agreement with Cobb that promised to withhold information about the investigation in exchange for an assurance that the district would not be sued over the matter. Cobb’s identity was later revealed after the Journal-World filed an open records request asking the district to release the settlement agreement.

Cobb, 57, later described that investigation as a “witch hunt” led by district leaders. In a January email interview with the Journal-World, the former teacher said he had been “railroaded” out of his job in the district, where he had worked for 17 years.

He has since denied all wrongdoing while remaining largely silent about the specific allegations against him, and, when asked by the Journal-World earlier this year, Cobb said he could not recall the exact remarks that prompted the allegations in October 2016.

Cobb alleged that the district targeted him because he had written several letters to the Lawrence school board expressing concern about the district’s treatment of its teachers. Cobb, who also served on the local teachers union’s negotiations team, didn’t specify which of his comments might have spurred the district to retaliate against him, however.

The district later said in a statement that it “disagreed” with Cobb’s characterization of the investigation, and it denied taking part in an “orchestrated attack” on Cobb.

Throughout the investigation and its aftermath, Cobb said he received multiple death threats, that his daughters were exposed to “absolutely vile trash” about their father on social media and that he felt like a “pariah” in his own hometown.

“I became a hermit, cutting off most of my social contacts and staying in my house for the most part,” Cobb told the Journal-World back in January.

Aside from Thursday’s arrest, Cobb has no criminal record in Douglas County.

It does not appear that any weapons were involved in the incident that led to the arrest, Rhoads said.

Boyle, the district’s director of communications, said schools are placed on lockdown “when an emergency inside the building places or has the potential to place students or staff in danger.” A lockdown indicates a more severe threat than a lockout, when the potential danger (police activity in the surrounding neighborhood, for example) is occurring outside the building.