South Campus has received an all-clear at around 4 P.M. this past Saturday after undergoing a lockdown and an extensive room-by room police search. The lockdown, which started just after 12:30 P.M., was called after LT security guards received a report from an individual of a suspicious man with a bulge in his pants—assumed to be a weapon—walking around the outside of the building.
“Our personnel went inside to try to get the individual,” Superintendent Dr. Timothy Kilrea said. “They turned around to see the person who [reported the incident], and that person had already evacuated. He left. So literally there was nothing seen and the individual reporting was not there.”
Local police were quickly called and arrived at the scene. First responders recommended an evacuation, which was quickly carried out, according to Kilrea.
LT had been hosting several different sporting events at this time, including the boys and girls cross country conference meet, a volleyball tournament and a club water polo tournament for middle school players.
Robert Payne, a referee at the water polo tournament, was about to start the second half of his first game when police came into the pool area and told everyone to evacuate.
“We cleared out,” Payne said. “They didn’t say what was going on, but there were police in the hallways with assault rifles, kind of spread out.”
The alarm, however, turned out to be false. Police went through every room of SC, searching for any clues or signs of an active shooter, but found nothing. Even so, Kilrea said LT is taking no chances with security.
“We still will have local law enforcement patrol the areas, but I think the good news here is that they found exactly what we were hoping to find, which is nothing,” Kilrea said.
Kilrea also dismissed the idea that the report could have been a prank.
“There’s a chance of anything,” Kilrea said. “But you don’t take a chance when it’s about safety, about students, about visitors, about our facility, so that’s why we called the Western Springs Police.”