Unless Flossmoor police uncover new information, the case of a reported threat made against Parker Junior High School via Instagram is at a standstill. According to Flossmoor Deputy Chief Tod Kamleiter, police have no leads to pursue in the incident in which several students reported seeing a threat of armed violence toward the school posted on the social media site.
Unless Flossmoor police uncover new information, the case of a reported threat made against Parker Junior High School via Instagram is at a standstill.
According to Flossmoor Deputy Chief Tod Kamleiter, police have no leads to pursue in the incident in which several students reported seeing a threat of armed violence toward the school posted on the social media site.
“Unfortunately we haven’t made much progress in the case,” Kamleiter said. “We understand the kids saw something on Instagram, but no one was able to capture a screenshot of it and we weren’t able to find it.”
On April 24, some Parker students reported to school staff that they saw an Instagram post that threatened the school with a gun attack at a specific time, Kamleiter said.
The school was placed on a yellow lockdown, also called a “soft” lockdown. Classes continued, while all interior and exterior doors were locked and unnecessary movement around the school campus was restricted.
District 161 administrators notified parents of Parker students about the incident through an emailed letter. Kamleiter said several parents chose to remove their children from school for the day. School resumed as normal on Thursday.
When school administrators heard the threat reports, they notified Flossmoor police. Officers responded to the school where they remained all day, Kamleiter said, guarding the exterior and interviewing the students who reported the threat.
“To err on the side of caution, we were there at the campus all day and visible to all,” Kamleiter said.
Among the reports of the Instagram threat, one or more students mentioned a specific account name, according to Kamleiter. However, no threat was found on that account.
Flossmoor police obtained records related to the Instagram account through a subpoena process, Kamleiter said, but the records showed no evidence of recent activity.
“Whatever is put on Instagram, in most cases, is retrievable. They can even track the account to the IP address, which gives us the specific phone or computer,” he said. “So, we don’t know if we were given the wrong account or what happened.”
Despite the lack of evidence, Kamleiter said police have no reason to believe that the students who reported the threat weren’t telling the truth.
“We think there was something out there, and maybe it got misconstrued or they got the account name wrong. We just don’t know,” Kamleiter said.
“We hope this is not a trend that continues, but we will deal with it appropriately if we get any more threats. In the meantime, if you see something, say something. We never want to discourage people from reporting something that concerns them. We’re all in this together.”