Elk Grove police search home for stolen vehicle suspect; nearby school on lockdown
An Elk Grove school was placed in a precautionary lockdown Wednesday as police officers deployed a flash bang and searched a nearby home for a suspect who ran from a stolen vehicle.
Officers had surrounded a house in the area of Iris Meadow Way and Wild Sienna Court, where officers believed the suspect was hiding, the Elk Grove Police Department announced about 11:45 a.m. Wednesday in social media updates.
The Police Department urged residents to stay out of the area until further notice. Officers initially were trying to contact the suspect, who was believed to possibly be inside the home.
Officers had been conducting a stolen vehicle investigation, and the vehicle’s owners told police that the tracker was showing it at a home, the Police Department announced at 2:48 p.m. Wednesday. The officers arrived and spotted the possible suspect enter a home.
Police held a perimeter around the home and conducted a thorough search with a SWAT team, K9 units and aerial drones. Police said officers did not find the known suspect inside the home or the surrounding area. The suspect was known to the people who lived in the home.
Police said the nearby school was safe and not affected by its search. Shortly before 12:30 p.m., police said Elk Grove Unified School District and staff at the nearby school had placed the campus on a precautionary lockdown.
Officers had deployed the flash bang device as a distraction technique, and they were searching the home.
Elk Grove Unified spokeswoman Xanthi Soriano said Helen Carr Castello Elementary School was placed on lockdown just as a precautionary measure, because of its morning and afternoon kindergarten classes. She said school staff was ready to make sure students and their parents entered and exited the campus safely and stayed away from the police activity.
Shortly after 2 p.m., Soriano said school district security staff were going to remain on campus Wednesday afternoon for an early dismissal day that was already scheduled before the incident occurred. She said security staff stayed on campus because the police activity had not been completed yet.
The elementary school is about a block north of where police were searching for the suspect. Police said the school dismissal occurred as scheduled at 2 p.m., and the student dismissal and pick ups took place at the school’s front entrance.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 1:00 PM.
