VIDEO: NIPAS Response for Armed Subject at Dryden Place Apartment Complex North of Kensington Road, Arlington Heights
Arlington Heights police and firefighter/paramedics responded about 9:09 AM Friday to a report of a barricaded, armed subject in an apartment complex that turned out to be a report of a “man with a gun” at 5 South Dryden Place Arlington Heights, IL. Police immediately blocked Dryden Place between Kensington Road and Miners Street.
The NIPAS Emergency Services Team (with a SWAT-like response) responded to the scene. Two larger command and/or tactical vehicles, and a Bearcat armored vehicle were on the scene, but left by about 10:30 a.m.
A police source reported that as police assessed the incident, they understood on the scene that five witnesses reported seeing a man with a gun. The police source did not release a description of the gunman, and confirmed that police never had any communication or any visual contact with a gunman.
Police searched the building and provided safety and warmth for two children that were at the apartment building. Firefighter/paramedics welcomed the two children, who were escorted away from the apartment building for safety as police searched the apartment building. The children were met by firefighter/paramedics in an ambulance in the middle of the street on Dryden Place. Paramedics initially staged north of Miner School near Miner Street.
Firefighter/paramedics did not transport any patients to the hospital. Police also reported that no people were injured in the incident. The situation at the scene was resolved by about 10:30 a.m.
It is unknown if there was a language barrier, or otherwise, how the “man with a gun call” was dispatched as an armed, barricaded subject.
The apartment complex recently has been the site of two separate heroin overdoses, an apartment fire, and numerous domestic disturbances. About five years ago, the Arlington Heights police and the Major Case Assistance Team (MCAT) were called to the apartment complex on Friday April 16, 2010 when the lower half of a human body — severed just above the pelvis — was found in a garbage bag next to a dumpster in a back alley.
IMPORTANT ALERT …
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 secret military-grade 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, such as when desperate offenders of property crimes are eluding police. 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.
Lack of real time information from police dispatch also delays public awareness or eliminates public awareness of general hazards and traffic or other situations in every day living in an otherwise economically thriving community.
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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