Evanston police are asking the public for help after a loaded handgun was found outside of a school in the north suburb, authorities said.
On August 5 shortly after 9 a.m., a citizen reported that they had found a gun in a parking lot west of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literary and Fine Arts School, or King Arts, a K-8 magnet school in the 2400 block of Lake Street.
“There was no threat to the school,” Evanston Police Commander Ryan Glew said Monday. “The investigation has not revealed that.”
He said there were not any students or staff at the school, and that students do not return from summer break until August 23. He also said the loaded 40 caliber handgun was recovered by officers and inventoried as evidence.
“We’ll try to identify if there’s any serial numbers or stuff on there that can be traced.” Glew said. “We’ll process it for evidence to see if there’s any latent print evidence or DNA evidence that could determine prior possession of the firearm.”
Glew said there could be any number of reasons the weapon was found at the school and he is cautious about speculating so early in the investigation. He also said police are conducting an investigation to determine if the weapon is related to other crimes.
“Anytime there’s an unsecured loaded weapon that anybody can have access to, that’s a inherently hazardous situation,” Glew said. “Then you put it by a school, even if school is not in session, but sometimes schools are still frequented by young people when it’s not in session. Anybody could find it and that includes kids. They could hurt themselves or someone else.”
Police are asking anyone with information regarding how the gun ended up on school property to contact the Evanston Police Detective Bureau at 847-866-5040 or Text-A-Tip to CRIMES (274637) and to start their message with EPDTIP.
“If anybody knows how that gun got there or has knowledge of how that gun got there or discarded there, that would be something that we would want to know,” said Glew.
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.
