LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A new arrest report obtained by FOX5 is providing more details about a recording device discovered in a Las Vegas elementary school classroom last week – and the suspect who planted it.
Around 4:10 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20, Las Vegas police officers responded to Woolley Elementary School after a teacher reported finding a digital audio recording device inside a sensor in her classroom.
The suspect, identified as Haroon Rashid Zakai, 44, was identified on Thursday afternoon by the Clark County School District Police Department. As part of an agreement with his union, Zakai will no longer be allowed on campus upon his release from custody.
Mark Wilson, a teacher at Woolley took a photo of the alleged recording device. He also told FOX5 that the recording device was discovered in a class with young special needs students.
The teacher told officers that the sensor had fallen from the ceiling, revealing the device inside, around 12:30 p.m. Upon its discovery, the device appeared to still be recording.
“I looked at the device and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this looks like a recording device. What is this doing in here?’” she told FOX5. The teacher put the device on her desk and re-examined it after students were gone.
Around 3:30 p.m., Zakai entered the teacher’s classroom and quickly walked to the desk to pick up the device. The teacher told him to put the device down because “there could be fingerprints on it,” according to the report.
Zakai put the device down and told the teacher that he was the one to place the device in the ceiling. He then “got down on one knee and begged the [teacher] not to call the police, stating it would ruin him,” the report notes.
He stated that he was “trying to get recordings of student conversations for his AI device business to stop bullying.”
He then continued to reach for the device on the desk, and the teacher told him once again to keep away from it. He insisted that he could “delete it and [it] would never happen again” and stated, “Just let me delete it.”
Zakai attempted to leave the classroom with the device, prompting the teacher to place him in what she described to police as a “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu hold,” which left both parties on the ground and left the teacher with scrapes on her arms. Zakai then, after being released by the teacher, ran from the room with the outer housing of the sensor. The teacher was able to grab the device and run to another room as well.
Responding officers were advised that Zakai may have been barricaded in a room in the school, but found that he had left campus before police arrival. He told officers that he left the campus with his son, and would be back shortly to speak with police.
At 5:00 p.m., Zakai was taken into custody by police and stated that he wanted a lawyer present before questioning.
He was booked into Clark County Detention Center and is facing charges related to electronic surveillance at a school without knowledge, attempting to destroy or conceal evidence, damaging educational property, and monitoring private conversations.
Zakai is due in court on Thursday, April 25.
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