‘Drug deal that went bad’ leads to school lockdown

What started out as a report of a possible car crash behind Monroe Middle School on Friday night became something entirely different when Eugene police sorted it all out.

“It looks like it was a drug deal that went bad,” police spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin said.

And three young men ended up in handcuffs, charged with various felonies, from delivery of marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school, to theft, to assault, to criminal mischief.

And whoever was attending a Kidsports basketball game at the school at 2800 Bailey Lane at the time found themselves in a “lockdown” for about 30 minutes as the alleged drug deal went sideways, and the suspects went down in more ways than one.

A call to police came in about 8 p.m. of a car crash behind the school and someone possibly trapped under the vehicle, McLaughlin said. There also was a report that two men were eastbound on foot behind the school at one point and that one of them might be armed, she said. Thus, the lockdown at the school.

When police arrived, they found two men hiding in a car in a field behind the school, McLaughlin said. Another car was stuck in mud.

Arrested were Marco Antonio Armas, 18, and Shane Richard Zelez, 19, both charged with delivery of marijuana within a 1,000 feet of a school, second-degree theft and second-degree trespass; and Blake Wesley Ward, 22, charged with second-degree assault, second-degree trespass and second-degree criminal mischief.

Armas was still lodged in the Lane County Jail as of Saturday night.

Armas and Zelez allegedly arranged to buy marijuana from Ward behind the school with the intent to steal it, McLaughlin said. The suspects ran and allegedly were chased by Ward in his car, she said. His car “struck the slower of the two,” she said. Ward’s vehicle apparently got stuck in the mud and he then allegedly was assaulted by Armas and Zelez, McLaughlin said. The two were apparently hiding in a car they parked on the other side of a field when police arrived, she said.