Schools in East Manhattan Beach had a brief scare on Friday morning after a "suspicious individual" was spotted in the parking lot of the Manhattan Beach Unified School District's offices. 

As reported by Montessori School community members, the individual was walking through the MBUSD parking lot to Peck Avenue.

In response, just before 10:00 a.m., Mira Costa, Pennekamp, and the MBUSD offices were briefly held to a shelter-in-place, while the Montessori School on Peck Ave. was placed on lockdown.

The shelter-in-place procedures were enacted "out of an abundance of caution" and lasted for about 35 minutes, MBUSD Superintendent John Bowes wrote in an email to parents. "Two text messages and email updates were sent to school site staff and families during the shelter-in-place, with a third message notifying everyone that the shelter-in-place had been lifted," he wrote. "Once MBPD provided the all-clear, all schools, including Montessori, returned to operations as usual."

Pennekamp Elementary, the Montessori School, the MBUSD offices, and Mira Costa High School are all lined up in a row along Peck Ave. . 

The MBUSD offices can be accessed from Rowell Ave., but only by foot, and the parking lot continues all the way through to Peck Ave. The entrance at Rowell and Voorhees is shut off to cars, but not pedestrians. A large portion of the area is currently surrounded by dark green construction fencing for the city's Voorhees Sewer Lift Station Upgrades Project.