A middle school and elementary school in Addison were placed on lock down. (CBS)
UPDATED: 10/5/2012 – 6:44 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) — An intruder allegedly tied up a girl at Indian Trail Junior High School in west suburban Addison Friday. Police and school officials ordered a lockdown for more than three hours as Indian Trail and an adjacent elementary school were searched.
Police and school officials won’t say a lot about what happened.
School officials contacted Addison police at 9:44 a.m. Police Director Timothy Hayden said someone had found a girl “restrained” in a school washroom.
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Students were ordered to stay in their classrooms, with doors locked, as the search proceeded.
“We were all in the classroom freaking out. We didn’t know what to do,” said student Joheny Cantero. “We couldn’t do anything.”
The lockdown continued until every inch of both schools had been searched, Hayden said. As many as 20 officers took part in the search, including one using a trained police dog. But he refused to give any description of an alleged attacker or any of the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Some parents complained that they did not hear about the incident or the lockdown from the schools until noon, but District 4 Supt. John Langton insisted to reporters that all protocols were followed.
Parent Wendy Cantero said she heard a lot of rumors, but nothing official.
“I am very frustrated because I had to find out from the Internet what was going on,” she said as she picked up her daughter.
She said school officials at first denied that the girl had been found tied up.
Langton denied rumors that similar incidents had occurred at District 4 schools in recent weeks.
He said he believed the lockdown and search went smoothly, and said the biggest concerns he heard after declaring it over were from students and staff whose main concerns “were getting something to eat and using the washroom.”
