District 65’s Haven Middle School and Kingsley Elementary School were briefly locked down Thursday morning while police responded to an “altercation” involving a knife outside the schools, according to an Evanston Police Department spokesperson and EPD social media posts.
EPD first posted on X about the lockdown at the northwest Evanston schools at 8:52 a.m., writing that officers had taken those involved in an “outdoor disturbance” into custody. “No threat to the public and disturbance was not inside either school,” the post said.
A later post said, “The disturbance is over and peace has been restored.” And shortly after 10 a.m., EPD posted again to say the lockdown had been lifted and that there were no injuries. Paramedics did treat one person struggling with “an asthma issue,” according to police.
In a follow-up statement to the RoundTable, police Cmdr. Scott Sophier said the incident “reportedly involved Haven School students as well as family members of students.”
“While most parties involved in the altercation were under the age of 18, at least two individuals on-scene were adults (18 or older). One adult and five juveniles were placed into custody and transported to the Evanston Police Department,” Sophier wrote in an email. “The ongoing investigation indicates this was not a random act, but appears to be the culmination of a previous dispute between a group of juveniles.”
The same group was involved in fights on Wednesday at both Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center and on the 1800 block of Lyons Street, according to the police report. An initial confrontation Thursday morning outside Haven resulted in three arrests, but “additional family members arrived and were hostile/noncompliant with police and school officials,” EPD reported. “They refused orders to leave, and one individual knocked a Detective to the ground before fleeing on foot. He was arrested, along with two of the other individuals who had arrived.”
All six people taken into custody were charged with “mob action,” which is defined by the state as either “the knowing or reckless use of force or violence disturbing the peace by 2 or more persons,” or “the knowing assembly of 2 or more persons with the intent to commit or facilitate the commission of a felony or misdemeanor.” The crime is considered a felony in the first case and a misdemeanor in the second.
Additionally, EPD charged one of the juveniles with two counts of battery to a police officer, one count of resisting arrest and one count of criminal trespass. Another juvenile is facing an unlawful use of a weapon charge for allegedly carrying a knife on school grounds and an aggravated assault charge. One of the remaining minors was charged with battery, and another with criminal trespass. Mob action was the only charge for the last juvenile and the adult.
All charges are pending approval by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. Battery of a police officer is the most serious charge – for adults, it’s a class 1 felony in Illinois and carries a minimum prison sentence of four years. Since the person charged in this case is a minor, there is sentencing discretion, and if the juvenile were to be found guilty, the sentence could include juvenile detention, probation, community service or any combination of the three.
District 65 response
In immediately reacting to the situation Thursday morning, District 65 put Haven on a full lockdown, where “students and staff have been asked to remain in place, and all interior and exterior doors have been secured,” according to an email sent to families from Chief of Academics and Schools Management Charmekia McCoy.
McCoy told parents and guardians not to come to the building and stressed that “an incident taking place outside of the school” had caused the lockdown (emphasis her own). She explained that “this decision is to err on the side of safety for all,” and that “all students are safe within the building.”
Kingsley, on the other hand, entered a “Secure & Teach” – also known as a soft lockdown – where entry to and exit from the building was restricted, but students and staff remained free to move around the interior of the school.
“Please know that all students and staff are safe within the building and this incident is not connected to Kingsley,” Principal David Davis said in an email to Kingsley families notifying them of the soft lockdown. “Students arriving late will be checked in at the door and helped to class by a D65 staff member.”
Both Davis and Haven Principal Chris Latting later sent follow-up emails to announce an end to each school’s respective lockdown. Latting also wrote a longer follow-up email to the Haven community at the end of the day, in which he provided some additional details about the situation that precipitated the lockdown.
“Earlier this morning, we learned of a situation that occurred outside the school building prior to the start of school. There was a verbal altercation that became physical in nature,” Latting said. “We began putting safety response protocols into place. This included notifying the Evanston Police Department, who came on campus to provide support. We entered into a lockdown as a precautionary measure.”
None of District 65’s official communication to families mentioned that one of the people involved in the altercation was carrying a knife. Only EPD identified that threat in its posts on X. A district spokesperson told the RoundTable that officers were present during dismissal “as an added safety measure.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include details from the police report and from District 65’s communications with Haven and Kingsley families throughout the day.
Haven, Kingsley schools briefly locked down amid knife ‘altercation’ outside is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.