Maine West High evacuated after false intruder alarm; police investigating
A false report of an armed intruder at Maine West High School in Des Plaines on Friday morning prompted many students and staffers to flee the building while others barricaded themselves in classrooms, authorities said.
Des Plaines police and officers from other agencies, including the Cook County sheriff's office and the Park Ridge Police Department, searched the building and found no threat. No one was hurt.
Classes and activities were canceled for the rest of the day as police tried to determine whether the alarm was triggered accidentally or deliberately or if it was a mechanical malfunction.
The school is equipped with intruder alarms that can be activated manually.
"We're going to conduct a full investigation," Chief David Anderson said.
Police were alerted to the emergency about 9:50 a.m. at the school, 1755 S. Wolf Road.
The alarm originated on the second floor. A Des Plaines police officer stationed at Maine West rushed to the area but found nothing dangerous, Anderson said.
As students and employees fled or sheltered inside, more officers arrived and entered the school, Anderson said. Two thorough searches turned up nothing, he said.
A long stretch of Wolf Road was closed to traffic for a few hours after the alarm. As part of a school emergency plan, students went to the Prairie Lakes Community Center, nearly 2 miles away, to meet their parents.
Maine Township High School District 207 board member Ed Eicker was among the parents who were alerted to the emergency via text messages from their kids. His son said there was an armed intruder in the building "but I'm out of the school."
"It's TERRIFYING to get a text like this from your child," Eicker said in a Facebook post. "I wish I lived in a country where I didn't wonder every single day if my kids were going to come home from school alive."
Students or employees who need emotional support because of the emergency will receive it, District 207 spokesman Brett Clark said.
About 1,900 students attend Maine West, and about 250 employees were there Friday, Clark said.