Meridian Park locked down during bank robbery at Chase

Meridian Park Elementary

Following a bank robbery on Tuesday afternoon at 182nd and Midvale (see previous story), Shoreline police put the Meridian Park campus (including Cascade K-8) into lockdown at about 3:50pm and subsequently put the Children's Center next door into lockdown. Meridian Park Elementary is located at the corner of NE 175th and Meridian Ave N. The Children's Center is just south, on Meridian.

The lockdown lasted until about 4:30pm when Shoreline Police gave the all clear.

Per standard practice, the school district posted notification of the lockdown on the front page of their website and that information was automatically copied to the individual school sites.

On Wednesday, January 9, 2013, Meridian Park Principal Amy Jessee sent out this letter to families at Meridian Park.

Dear Meridian Park families: 

As you all know, our first priority is the safety of our students, staff and community members. We want to inform you of a situation that happened yesterday. At approximately 3:45 p.m., the Shoreline police notified us that they were in pursuit of a bank robbery suspect in the neighborhood of our school. The Shoreline police advised us to go into a lockdown.  We followed their lead and enacted a lockdown at 3:50pm.

A lockdown is defined as a situation where students are kept supervised within their classrooms or in the interior of the building until the emergency no longer exists. This means that no one is allowed to enter or leave the building during the lockdown time period. The lockdown lasted approximately 45 minutes, at which time the police notified us that the suspect had been apprehended. The lockdown was then lifted. 

Please know that the students, staff and community members did a great job during this incident.  Our principal designees were on-site for this incident and led the adults on site through every step of the school district lockdown procedure.  I want to thank them for their leadership.  Again, as you know, the safety of our students is paramount at all times. Thank you for your continued support and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments regarding yesterday’s situation.

Sincerely,

Amy Jessee

Principal