Editor’s note: This story, published at 3:10 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2024, was updated at 3:40 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2024, to add information from police that the driver has not been charged. It was updated at 5:40 p.m. to include a statement from WSSC Water General Manager and CEO Kishia L. Powell.

A WSSC Water employee has been identified as the victim of the fatal pedestrian collision that occurred early Sunday in Silver Spring, according to Montgomery County police.

Ernest Joseph Dyson, 39, of Clinton was working when he was struck by a driver of a black 2011 Volkswagen CC at the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and Rodney Road, police said Monday in a statement. WSSC Water provides water and wastewater services to customers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, according to its website.

WSSC Water General Manager and CEO Kishia L. Powell said in a statement Monday afternoon that the WSSC Water organization was “heartbroken and honestly still in shock” following news of Dyson’s death.

According to Powell, Dyson, who worked at WSSC Water for 18 years, was responding to a water main break in Silver Spring when he was fatally struck early Sunday.

“This is a sad reminder of the risks our front-line water heroes face in service to our 1.9 million customers,” Powell said. “…Ernest was the embodiment of professionalism and public service … [and] a dedicated and highly respected member of the Utility Services Department.”

Powell said that the WSSC Water would continue to support Dyson’s family and team following the “senseless tragedy.”

At approximately 4:40 a.m. officers and Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service crews responded to the scene of the collision for a report of a pedestrian struck by a vehicle, police said. The collision occurred in the Hillandale neighborhood of Silver Spring near Hillandale Local Park.

An investigation revealed the driver of the vehicle was allegedly “intoxicated” and traveling southbound on New Hampshire Avenue when the collision occurred, according to police.

Dyson was pronounced dead at the scene. The adult driver was uninjured, according to a police statement issued Sunday.

The driver of the vehicle has not been charged, police spokesperson Casandra Tresler said in an email Monday.

Tresler said that the department’s Collision Reconstruction Unit “thoroughly investigates” fatal collision cases and investigations can take up to eight weeks to complete. When the investigation is complete, the case is presented to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review and the potential determination of charges.

Detectives are asking those who may have witnessed the collision to call 240-773-6620. The investigation is active and ongoing.

WSSC Water did not immediately respond to MoCo360’s email and phone call requests for comment Monday afternoon.

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Taiwanese ghost kitchen Bao Bei will open its first brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Montrose Crossing shopping center in Rockville in early 2025, Federal Realty Investment Trust announced Thursday.

Since 2022, Bao Bei has operated a ghost kitchen at 11910 Parklawn Drive in North Bethesda serving bao buns, rice bowls, desserts and catering bundles. Bao Bei’s restaurant will open at 12055 Rockville Pike, next to Honey Pig Korean BBQ and Kosmo Nail Bar.

Federal Realty did not say whether the restaurant will keep the Bao Bei name or if the ghost kitchen will close.

Ghost kitchens are restaurants without dining space and no visible storefront, according to a release from Federal Realty, which owns Montrose Crossing and several other local shopping and dining developments. Food prepared in ghost kitchens is typically sold through third-party delivery apps.

“We welcome Chef Kevin and Bao Bei to Montrose Crossing,” Joseph Byrnes, vice president of regional leasing at Federal Realty, said in the release. “Bao Bei will be a savory addition to our merchant lineup offering another premium, innovative restaurant to this shopping and dining destination.”

The news of the upcoming opening follows Bao Bei’s recent participation in the 17^th season of Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race, which brings together nine aspiring chefs from across the U.S. and challenges them in an elimination-style race to win $50,000, the release said. The season aired this summer and Bao Bei made it to the finale, winning second place.

Bao Bei was created by founder, owner and chef Kevin Hsieh. The graduate of Gaithersburg High School and University of Maryland Baltimore County had landed a job as a financial analyst but found himself considering a culinary career. He launched the eatery in September 2019 at a street market pop-up in Washington, D.C.

“The job didn’t occupy my mind as I wanted it to, so I got the idea to sell my nostalgic childhood food,” Hsieh said. “I grew up in the Rockville area, where there is a plethora of Asian food—Japanese, Korean, Chinese—but not much Taiwanese.”

Hsieh started Bao Bei guided by mentorship from his father—who manages a restaurant at the MGM National Harbor in Prince George’s County and was a chef at several Washington, D.C.-area restaurants—and a research trip to his parent’s hometown of Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan.

After debuting at the D.C. street market, Hsieh also focused on selling food at festivals and markets. In 2022 Hsieh moved the operation to its ghost kitchen in Rockville and now operates it with his childhood best friend Zakary Keres.

According to Hsieh, Bao Bei is a term of endearment in Taiwanese, describing someone or something that one deeply treasures.

“A tribute to my family, I will share my culture with the community through Bao Bei’s dishes,” Hsieh said in the Federal Realty release.

After The Great Food Truck Race season ended, Hsieh posted a video on Instagram thanking the show’s viewers and his supporters for rooting for the Bao Bei team as it completed challenges including creating meals for astronauts.

“I’m really glad that Food Network and Tyler Florence gave us an opportunity to showcase Taiwanese food to a larger audience,” Hsieh said in the video.

“I hope you’re excited to watch us expand our power and influence to the whole realm,” he added. “I appreciate all of you very much. Your support is amazing. It’s going to help me continue to live the dream of bringing Taiwanese food to every block of the world.”

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Editor’s note: This article, originally published at 11:38 a.m. on Aug. 29, 2024, was updated at 3:03 p.m. on Aug. 29, 2024, to correct that the location of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration headquarters is in Silver Spring.

To Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, the future of development and economic vitality in the county lies with the life sciences and technology industries.

But to get a stronghold in those industries, the county must have an economic and development landscape more like Northern Virginia, Elrich said Tuesday evening at an event sponsored by the business platform Bisnow in Bethesda.

The event dubbed the “Future of Montgomery County,” examined the county’s 2024 development trends and brought together architects, county planners, contractors, engineers, developers and business executives.

Elrich said in his opening remarks that after hearing from many developers that “life is better in Northern Virginia,” he decided to investigate the claim himself and spoke with planners and regulatory agencies about how the county differed from that region.

One of the key differences is how Virginia taxes development and commercial property using special taxing districts and laws that allow taxes in those districts to fund transportation projects, such as the Silver Line Metro, he said.

Speaking to the development and business community, Elrich suggested it is time to rethink how the county taxes commercial properties.

“I’m asking people here to be part of a change in Montgomery County to help us move the [County] Council, to help us move the state legislature, to give us authority that the state legislature in Virginia gave to the Northern Virginia counties,” Elrich said, referring to the process it will take to allow the county to change its taxing method.

According to Elrich, Fairfax County taxes commercial property at a rate nearly 50% higher than Montgomery County does. In the county, commercial and residential tax rates are the same.

Elrich also believes the county’s impact taxes, typically paid in large sums at the start of a project, are hindering development.

Development impact taxes are “assessed on new residential and commercial buildings and additions to commercial buildings in the county to fund, in part, the improvements necessary to increase the transportation or public-school systems capacity,” according to the county Department of Permitting Services website.

Elrich referred to Northern Virginia’s commercial taxing method as the “front door” to raise funds from special taxing districts to go toward transportation projects in the county such as the Bus Rapid Transit line.

Changing the taxing method is especially necessary now, Elrich said, because Gov. Wes Moore (D) recently warned counties of upcoming budget difficulties, especially regarding transportation funding, while speaking recently at the Maryland Association of Counties conference in Ocean City in August.

“The No. 1 impediment we have is transportation. And we’ve known about this for a long time,” Elrich said. “People in the early part of the 21^st century were talking about transportation being the key to economic development. And Montgomery County has not been able to make the progress that it needs to be.”

Improvements to the county’s transportation system, Elrich argues, will create a strong foundation for the county’s goal of becoming a life sciences hub and destination for developers.

Andy Altman, a principal and co-founder of Washington, D.C.-based Foursquare Development, said during a panel at Tuesday’s BisNow event that transit-oriented, high-density development is important to developers looking to develop in the county.

“Montgomery County has fantastic assets and these Metro stops … many of them are waiting for the development of that same kind of alignment,” Altman said, referring to Fivesquare’s partnership with the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) on a joint development project at the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station.

Sandy Paik, general counsel at Rockville-based The Tower Cos., also spoke on the panel and acknowledged that development environments in Montgomery and Fairfax counties are different.

“[Montgomery County has] been left behind in some areas,” Paik later told MoCo360, “I do think that investing deeply in the transit-oriented development is going to be really critical for [the county].”

During his speech, Elrich noted several projects underway in the county that he hopes will become future life sciences hubs such as the property where the former White Flint Mall was located near the North Bethesda Metro station.

In July, WMATA officials, state and local officials and Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin discussed the future of the White Flint land with plans to construct a research center.

Elrich said he drew inspiration from Boston’s Kendall Square development, a neighborhood and district in the city known for being the home to a cluster of technology and life sciences companies such as Google, Johnson & Johnson, Novo Nordisk and Pfizer.

Other areas Elrich envisions as life sciences hubs are in downtown Silver Spring with the future expansion of United Therapeutics and in Gaithersburg with the expansion of AstraZeneca. Elrich also said the Viva White Oak development in Silver Spring is another area of interest as it is expected to be the future site of the East County campus of Montgomery College.

Elrich said he has been reaching out internationally to raise awareness about the county’s interest in being the next big bio-hub and in the last year has traveled to Taiwan twice and to Vietnam, China, India and South Korea.

On these trips, Elrich said he found that many biotech international companies are interested in the area due to its proximity to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which are headquartered in Silver Spring.

“We’re examining all of our life sciences assets. We’re determining what does Montgomery not have that other jurisdictions have?” Elrich said at the event. “We’re ranked No. 3  [in the country] in life sciences … Our goal is to change that, make a mark. And what we’re focused on is making sure that we have everything in Montgomery County that San Francisco and Boston have.”

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The latest restaurant from the founders of the Cava eatery chain will be Bouboulina, a modern steakhouse with Greek influences that’s set to open this fall in North Bethesda’s Pike & Rose development, according to Cava co-founder and chief concept officer Ted Xenohristos.

Bouboulina, which be located at 915 Meeting St., will be the restaurant group’s fifth full-service restaurant in Montgomery County.

Named after Laskarina Bouboulina, a Greek female naval commander in the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the restaurant will be a modern steakhouse that takes inspiration from Greek and Mediterranean culture and flavors, Xenohristos told MoCo360 Wednesday.

“In everything that we do, we go into our roots and we look at our heritage, and we draw inspiration from that. … We always go back to Greece, where our parents were born and raised and came from and emigrated to this country,” said Xenohristos, who lives in Rockville.

Xenohristos is opening the restaurant alongside Cava founders Ike Grigoropoulos, director of culinary excellence at Cava, and Dimitri Moshovitis, executive chef for the full-service restaurant group. The three men grew up in the county.

The trio own and operate Cava Mezze restaurants in Rockville and Olney and the Pike & Rose eateries Julii and Melina–which offers a cocktail named after Bouboulina and has a painting of the commander in its dining room.

Cava’s first fast-casual eatery opened on Bethesda Row in 2011, according to Bethesda Magazine. Thirteen years later the company is valued at more than $6 billion and has 341 Cava restaurants across the country.

According to Xenohristos, Bouboulina won’t be a typical steakhouse “with 30 different kinds of steaks” on the menu.

“We’ll have a select few cuts of meat that we really love and then we’ll bring in some pork, some lamb, some fish, we’ll bring in lots of different kinds of proteins,” he said.

Bouboulina’s chefs will also lean on Mediterranean flavors and spices at Bouboulina, using Aleppo pepper, sumac, Za’atar, oregano and sundried tomato powder in their dishes, Xenohristos said.

He said he is especially excited about the restaurant’s wood- and charcoal-fired grill and oven from Spain that will be used to cook meats, vegetables and other ingredients.

As patrons enter the restaurant–which will be split into a “light” and relaxing lounge for drinks and a darker and “moody” dining room–they will walk by the ovens to see and smell the food being cooked, Xenohristos said.

“We’re really proud of [the ovens]. We think that’s what will differentiate our food from others,” Xenohristos said, noting the smoky flavors that can be achieved from cooking on a charcoal or wood-fired grill.

He said the restaurant is in the early stages of construction and the founders are aiming for opening in October or November.

“We’re really excited,” Xenohristos said. “Obviously, our focus is on expanding our Cava restaurants, but we really, really love doing these full-service restaurants … and doing them in the place we all grew up in, the county that we all went to high school in.”

Xenohristos said it was special for the trio to build the restaurants and share them with family and friends but also people who have supported the restaurant group and Cava over the years.

“Bouboulina will just be an extension of what we do at Cava and Melina and Julii,” Xenohristos said.

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Pleasant View Park, a nearly 10-acre park with amenities including a bicycle pump track, community garden and large grassy lawn, is expected to open in Gaithersburg this fall, according to city officials.

The opening of the park at 10901 Darnestown Road comes nearly three years after construction began in November 2021. As of Aug. 21, the park was in the final phase of completion, according to the project webpage. A specific opening date has not been set.

In addition to the bicycle skills course – a circular loop with berms and rollers that cycylists can ride without pedaling – garden and large green space, the park will also have an outdoor fitness zone, walking trails, visitor plaza and pavilions with picnic tables

The land where the park sits originally was used from 1955 to 1975 as a fire control radar site of the U.S. Army NIKE Missile system, according to the city. After 1975 the site was home of the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Laboratory Campus, where consumer products were tested.

Named after the Pleasant View community, one of the first free Black communities established in the county after the Civil War, the “park’s name honors the historic significance of that community and the beauty of its natural surroundings,” Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman said Monday in an email statement to MoCo360.

“Pleasant View Park will add to the city’s diverse landscape of parks [and increase] access to outdoor amenities for residents and visitors. We are excited to welcome residents to Pleasant View Park soon,” Ashman said.

The community garden at Pleasant View Park will also be the city’s first, according to Ashman.

Plots are allotted to gardeners on a lottery-based system, according to the community garden webpage. Those interested in renting a plot must submit an application to enter the lottery, although this year the plot allotment has already been finalized.

Eighteen raised-bed plots are available, six of which measure 48 square feet and cost $30 per year and 12 that are 32 square feet and cost $25 per year. Individuals and families are limited to one plot per household/family, according to the community garden website.

The park will have a parking lot and a Ride-On bus stop is located at the park entrance on Darnestown Road.

Here are photos of the park in August:

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Eddie V’s Prime Seafood, an upscale restaurant chain, is looking for approval from the City of Gaithersburg to construct a 10,000-square-foot restaurant fronting Gaithersburg’s Lake Varuna, according to an application filed Aug. 12 with city planners.

If the project is approved and constructed, the restaurant will be the first Maryland location for the restaurant chain. The MoCoShow first reported Eddie V’s proposal to construct the restaurant.

According to the application filed by the property owner, 151 Lakelands LLC, the restaurant is proposed for the corner of Lakeland Drive and Great Seneca Highway next to the lake. The development plan is under review and a public hearing has not been scheduled, according to the City of Gaithersburg’s planning website.

A media representative for Darden Concepts, which owns and operates Eddie V’s, did not respond to MoCo360’s multiple calls and emails for comment.

Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, Yard House, the Capital Grille and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse are among some of the restaurants owned and managed by Darden Concepts.

Eddie V’s offers an upscale dining experience with signature cocktails, a jazz lounge and private events, according to its website. At its other locations, Eddie V’s menu includes oysters, Maine lobster bisque, crab fried rice and ahi tuna for lunch and dinner offerings include a shellfish tower, steak tartare, Chilean sea bass, scallops and cold-water lobster.

Eddie V’s operates 30 locations in the United States, with the closest to the county in Tyson’s Corner in McLean, Virginia, according to the chain’s website.

The restaurant’s proposed site has been the subject of controversy in recent years after the property owner applied to build a 12,900-square-foot daycare/early childhood education building, according to city planning documents.  Currently, the site is a forested green area.

The application was “controversial and resulted in vigorous community opposition to what was deemed to be despoilation of a natural area, with an adjacent lake, that had become, de facto, a community-oriented space,” the documents stated.

The city’s planning commission recommended approval of the childcare center to the City Council but in August 2021 the Gaithersburg City Council voted 3-2 to deny the application. The property owner filed an appeal of the council’s decision to the Montgomery County Circuit Court. After oral arguments were heard, a judge affirmed the council’s decision to deny the application in June 2022.

The site remains zoned for a 6,000-square-foot restaurant. According to planning documents, Eddie V’s approached the property owners with interest in the site due to its proximity to the lake for a “water view dining experience,” a large surrounding population and easy access from nearby transit routes.

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Montgomery County’s housing market is beginning to show an increase in the number of new listings but local real estate agents say buyers remain stymied by a lack of inventory.

According to a July housing statistics report from the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors (GCAAR), “prices and closed sales are up year over year, but there’s stability on the horizon.”

Last Tuesday, the association released its housing statistics for July for the county and the Washington, D.C. region. According to the report, there were 1,524 closed sales in the region, representing an increase of 3.5% year over year, and the average sale price for all residential properties was $836,200, up 6.8% from the same time last year.

Bruce Cotting, a Realtor with The Kensington Group and Chevy Chase-based RLAH Properties and member of GCAAR’s board of directors, told MoCo360 Thursday the county has been dealing with a lack of housing supply for as long as five years.

“COVID exacerbated the situation because everybody had the opportunity to move and now it’s sort of percolating down,” Cotting said. “We’ve got more people moving to the area than we have housing available and certainly we saw a strong uptick in new home sales.”

Comparing the summer to the same time last year, Cotting also said local real estate agents are seeing an uptick in houses going under contract and an increase in listings on the market. “But that demand [for homes] hasn’t caught up to that minimal increase [in listings] just over the last month or so,” he said.

In July, the median sold price for single-family homes in Montgomery County was $635,959, a 2.2% decrease from June but a 5.3% increase from the median sold price of $604,000 in July 2023, according to GCAAR statistics.

The average number of days that single-family homes in the county were on the market in July—17 days–remained the same as in June.

New listings were down from June to July, from 936 to 880 new listings in the county, but showed a more than 5% increase from the number of listings in July 2023.

The regional condo market remained stable from June to July, with the median sold price at $350,000 – a 3% increase from the same time last year. In addition, closed sales increased 12% from July 2023, from 2,201 to 2,465 closed sales, according to GCAAR statistics.

“My personal assessment is that we’re moving in the right direction in terms of seeing more and more listings start to come on the market,” said Cotting, who focuses primarily on the down-county area. “I hope that the sellers recognize that this is a strong push in the right direction, correcting the lack of inventory.”

Among those looking for new homes are families who need more space, Cotting said, and he thinks those buyers are helping by adding their own homes to the housing market.

“But those same buyers are hitting that challenge again. There is not enough out there. We’re finding that county buyers … who want to do the move up, or the reverse of that, [are] downsizing, there’s not enough for them to go after,” he noted.

As has been the case for several years, houses are going under contract as soon as they hit the market. Cotting said he has seen several situations in which a house was listed and “before you could show it, almost as soon as you scheduled a showing, the property was already under contract.”

Typically, in August, Cotting said, the housing market slows down and July’s activity will “erode” away. He suspects that buyers are waiting to see if interest rates will drop and if they do, there will be a “feeding frenzy” of home buyers.

“We’re past COVID now, and the impact that we’re still continuing to live from is the interest rates,” he said. “Interest rates started coming down in late July and in the beginning of August we started to see activity bounce back. But it’s certainly not where it would have been years prior.”

In the report, GCAAR President Christopher Suranna said that the association is “optimistic that lower mortgage rates could be ahead this fall,” providing an opportunity for more first-time homebuyers to enter the market.

“In the meantime, condos still present a more affordable option when compared to single-family,” Suranna said.

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A 15-year-old Silver Spring teen was arrested Monday and charged as an adult in connection with a May 26 double homicide at a park in downtown Silver Spring, according to authorities.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Montgomery County police said the teen was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia. According to police, the teen had left the country after the shooting and was taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection when he arrived back in the U.S. Police did not say where the teen was traveling from.

MoCo360 generally does not name juveniles who are charged with crimes.

The teen was charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of D’Andre Wint, 20, of Lanham and Quincy Johnson, 20, of Takoma Park at Nolte Local Park at 200 Denver Road, police said Monday. He is awaiting extradition to Montgomery County.

Detectives identified the teen as a key suspect during an investigation and requested a warrant for his arrest Monday, according to the statement.

The shooting was reported at approximately 6:57 p.m. at the park, police said in a statement in May. Surrounded by a neighborhood of single-family homes and apartment buildings, the park is the site of frequent sporting events, including soccer and softball games.

Upon arrival, police located Wint and Johnson each suffering from gunshot wounds and performed lifesaving efforts, but the men were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Following the shooting, community members and loved ones left flower bouquets at the park’s basketball court to honor the two young men.

The men’s families launched fundraisers to raise money for funeral expenses.

As of Aug. 26, a GoFundMe campaign launched by Heidi Martin, Johnson’s mother, had collected more than $30,000, more than triple its goal of $10,000.

“I am wordless, trying to find a way to share that my son Quincy has passed,” Martin wrote. “He is a brilliant light, he had a confused mind. His family and friends poured [their] love into him while he was here.”

A GoFundMe fundraiser for Wint’s family had raised more than $31,000 of its $30,000 goal.

“A beautiful soul that has filled all of our lives with love and joy is now gone,” the campaign page says. “To truly know Dre was to know light and love. He had the most infectious smile and laugh and lit up our hearts with his presence. He had a heart of gold and so much more life to live. Our family is in shreds, heartbroken, and trying to comprehend how we will continue life without him.”

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A 15-year-old Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School student has been charged in connection with the May 16 bomb threats called into the Bethesda school that led to a lockdown and a massive police response, according to authorities.

Montgomery County police said in a news release Monday the teen used social media to allegedly solicit the help of a 12-year-old Pennsylvania boy to call in the bomb threat to B-CC High and other county schools. The pair also are responsible for the May 17 bomb threat calls made to Bethesda Elementary School and Walt Whitman High School, according to the release.

The B-CC teen, who was not named, was charged with multiple counts including threats of mass violence, making a false statement, extortion, and other felony charges related to the event, police said.

Police spokesperson Shiera Goff told MoCo360 Monday the teen was not physically arrested but was released to his parents after he was charged. She did not say when the teen was charged.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) said Monday in a statement that police had notified the district about the teen’s arrest.

“Making bomb threats is not only illegal but also profoundly harmful,” the statement said. “Such actions cause unnecessary anxiety and fear among students, staff and the broader community. They also significantly disrupt the daily operations of our schools, undermining the safe and supportive learning environment that we are committed to maintaining.”

At an August school board meeting, MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor announced a renewed emphasis on safety. As part of that emphasis, Marcus Jones, the district’s chief of security and compliance, plans to investigate the county police response to bomb threats. According to school board documents, 21 bomb threats were reported during the 2023-2024 school year.   

Jones said he learned in his previous role as county police chief that many of the threats came from outside Montgomery County, and some even came from out of the state or country.  

Jones said he was working to revise response protocols regarding such threats so schools don’t respond with a “knee jerk reaction” and was looking at information to make the best decision to minimize disruption.

The B-CC High threat 

The May 16 incident began when the B-CC High School cluster’s Community Engagement Officer, the county police officer assigned to patrol the cluster, responded at about 11:23 a.m. to the phoned-in threat at the high school, Goff said in May.

According to police radio transmissions from that day, the school administration had received a threat that a suspect was in the building with an AR-15 rifle and pipe bombs. The school was placed on lockdown.

In Monday’s statement, police said the 15-year-old allegedly had been communicating with the 12-year-old during the lockdown and provided him with information, updates and instructions as he called in the threats. According to police, the caller demanded a specific amount of money to be paid to prevent the bombs from detonating.

Police responded to the threat at the high school with the deployment of SWAT, K-9 units and other law enforcement and security measures. As the school was placed in lockdown, many students were eating lunch, some off of school grounds, while others were inside taking exams.

As police searched the school, students who had left for lunch were not allowed in the building and dozens stood on sidewalks and the school’s driveway entrance on East-West Highway.

Then-freshman Telman Dashdorj told MoCo360 he had heard from students sheltering inside that armed police officers had “barged” into classrooms to search.

Some parents also stood across from the school waiting for more information along with students and news media.

Among the parents outside the school was FOX 5 reporter Bob Barnard, whose son, 18-year-old Jimmy, attended B-CC. The veteran reporter had been assigned to cover the threat at the school, according to the TV station located in downtown Bethesda.

“I’ve covered this kind of stuff so you know, it doesn’t usually get to me, but yeah you know, you’ve got your son trapped inside a real situation. It’s a little different, but I’m also trying to do my job and stay calm and provide as much accurate information as we can,” Barnard told the station as part of his report.

Barnard spoke to his son by phone, who said he was in the gymnasium taking an Advanced Placement Spanish exam when “a bunch of people ran in and teachers told us to stop taking the test and sit along the wall.”

Melissa Mello, whose daughter was a B-CC junior at the time, told MoCo360 that her daughter had texted her that she was safe in a room with other students and three security guards during the lockdown. Mello, a Chevy Chase resident, lives nearby and came over to the school after hearing sirens from emergency responders. “It’s terrifying,” she said.

Around 1:20 p.m., after K-9 officers searched and cleared the school, students outside of the school were allowed back in. School officials later announced that students would be dismissed at the normal time and parents could come to pick up their children.

According to police Monday, the 12-year-old boy was initially identified as the caller through a joint investigation by the police department’s Behavioral Assessment and Administrative Unit and the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office. Maryland state law prohibits charges from being filed against the boy, according to police.

“The actions of both individuals caused disruption to the school day, forcing a lockdown, and taking an emotional toll on the students, staff, and the community,” police said in Monday’s release.

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County firefighters rescued a dog and two parakeets Saturday from a Gaithersburg apartment after a webcam alerted the tenant, who was away from the home, about a fire in the kitchen, according to authorities.

Around 6:50 p.m., Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) crews responded to the apartment at 15 Prism Place for a report of a fire in a kitchen, MCFRS Assistant Chief Public Information Officer Dan Ogren told MoCo360 Monday.

Ogren said the fire started on the kitchen stovetop likely from an unattended pot on a burner, but did not spread to other areas of the kitchen or the apartment.

MCFRS Assistant Chief Public Information Officer David Pazos wrote on social media Saturday that the fire extended slightly beyond the stove.

The resident of the apartment was at work when the fire occurred and was alerted of the fire by a webcam in the home, Pazos said.

Upon arrival, crews forced entry into the apartment, extinguished the fire and rescued the dog, Lady, and two parakeets from a “smoke filled” apartment, Pazos said.

No injuries or displacements were reported. Pazos said the building management was assisting the resident with fixing the apartment door that was forced open by MCFRS crews.

Ogren said the fire caused minimal damage to the apartment. “It doesn’t look like there was any extension besides the cooking surface, so not a big fire,” he said.

After rescuing the animals, MCFRS crews waited with the pets until the resident of the apartment returned from work, according to Pazos on social media.

“@MCFRS is dedicated to protecting all lives and property, including animals,” Pazos said.

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