Pioneer Elementary and Olympic Middle schools were placed on varying levels of lockdown early Thursday morning after an alert Auburn resident spotted three suspicious characters in his neighborhood and called it in.

Auburn Police tracked down and arrested two of three kids fleeing the scene, Cmdr. Steve Stocker said.

“The call to patrol was three males in a car, in the area of the schools but not at the school,” Stocker said. “Once an officer got up to the car, the three males in it got out and took off running. Come to find out, it was a stolen car.”

A K-9 officer was called in, and because three people had fled from a car and police were preparing to do a track, the result was a lockdown at Olympic and a modified lockdown at Pioneer.

A modified lockdown is called when school has not yet started, and kids are still on their way to a location: nobody is allowed out, but people are not prevented from entering.

“We ended up catching two of the kids, not because of the dog, but because one of our officers ended up running into two of them, and the third one got away,” Stocker said.

What prompted the 911 call?

“Where they were parked had a lot to do with it. Three guys sitting in a car with the windows steamed up, and the guy did not recognize the car or kids; they just didn’t fit in his neighborhood. We get a lot of calls like that. And certainly, when an officer gets into the area and sees three people bale out and run, that’s suspicious,” Stocker said.