Sheriff's report: Man with machete outside school in Savannah arrested Wednesday

A Savannah man is charged with carrying a weapon on school property and possession of drug paraphernalia in an incident Wednesday around 11:20 a.m.
A Hardin County Sheriff’s Department preliminary report says a deputy arrested Joseph A. Highland, 38, on the charges outside Parris South Elementary School after the school resource officer took custody of a “male individual on school property matching the description of an individual with a black shirt, backpack and a machete.”
According to Hardin County Schools Director Michael Davis, no students were in the playground where the incident occurred and there was no security issue.
He said a teacher noticed someone with a “suspicious backpack” in the vicinity of a picnic table and reported it to the school resource officer.
In addition to the machete, a search of Highland’s backpack turned up a razor blade and a glass smoking pipe, and he had a pocket knife in his front pocket, the sheriff’s department report states.