Riverwoods Menards evacuated over geotags

A Riverwoods Menards store was evacuated Saturday evening due to a bomb scare when an employee reported suspicious packages in the parking lot, police said. The packages were found to contain geotags, GPS-like tracking devices that contain geographical data.

The Lake County sheriff's department responded to a call about the abandoned package around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. A Menards employee saw a white male placing cylindrical objects beneath a lighting post in the parking lot of the store at 2700 Lake Cook Road.

"The employee approached the individual, but the individual got in his car and sped off, so the employee thought maybe he was placing an explosive device," said Sgt. Timothy Jonites of the Lake County Sheriff's Department.

The Long Grove fire department and Cook County bomb squad evacuated the store and parking lot as a precautionary measure.

Inside the cylindrical tubes they found nearly a dozen geotags, which are placed on objects for people to track and locate online as part of a hide-and-seek game.

This is the first such incidence of geotagging that area police have dealt with, Jonites said.

Police are still searching for the man who placed the packages in the parking lot.