UPDATE: 4:38 PM:
See The Cardinal Oops, Extra Credit Science Project Brings Emergency Bomb Squad Response To Prospect High School, Mount Prospect [Includes video of law enforcement destroying devices] …
UPDATE 11:11 AM:
A suspicious bottle and/or package was reported to police on the grounds of Prospect High School. There is no threat to students, but precautionary measures were taken to protect students and faculty. The soft lock down is released.
Cook County Bomb Squad responded to the scene, and personnel from an unknown police agency were seen destroying various littered bottles on the school property. The police personnel were using what appeared to be a pellet rifle type of gun to shoot and destroy any suspicious bottles.
Police set up a safety perimeter around the school. Arlington Heights police also responded for mutual aid for the Mount Prospect Police Department. No paramedic ambulances or fire equipment vehicles were staged at the school.
PHOTOS AT PROSPECT HIGH SCHOOL …
ORIGINAL REPORT:
Prospect High School, 801 West Kensington Road, Mount Prospect is reported to be in a “soft lockdown” at about 10:00 a.m. Parents have received emails from Prospect High School that the school is on “soft lockdown”.
As of 10:10 a.m. there is no alert regarding an incident at Prospect High School on the official Mount Prospect Police Department twitter account.
There is possibly an incident going on outside the school near the school, but there is not confirmation at this time.
Cardinal Note: As of June 5, 2013 — up to and including the date of this article — police incidents related to the above police agency are not reported in real time or within a prompt time period. Police protecting their realm of investigation and police activity, have chosen to use encrypted radios to withhold their police communications, which were previously open to the public and news media via monitoring of public safety scanning radios — with no known negative results locally.
The delayed knowledge or entirely blacked out knowledge resulting from encrypted police communications may protect certain police operations and investigations, but it also puts the public at risk in situations such as when armed and dangerous offenders are at large and when other similar situations occur. In other cases, the delayed or blacked out information inhibits or prohibits the possibility of the public providing early witness accounts before a criminal trail goes cold. Citizens are much more likely to recognize or recall suspicious or criminal activity if they are aware of the criminal incident within minutes or hours of its occurrence. The most serious incident involving dire results would be a trail that is allowed to go cold in the case of child abduction.
The lack of real time information from public police dispatch also weakens an effective neighborhood watch program mostly working to prevent property loss, but also working to prevent possible violent crimes.
The lack of real time information also negatively affects normal economic and work activity in affected area as the precision of awareness of an incident is often clouded by lack of information or by police filtering of information that is released.
Police have alternate ways to transmit tactical, operational or investigative information, while still keeping their main public dispatch channels open for the best balance of public safety and police safety.
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