April 17, 2007, The Cranbrook Kingswood School (part of the Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan) experienced a police lockdown.
The lockdown came after a concerned parent called campus security to report what they believed to be a suspicious man, wearing women's clothing, on the Kingswood campus. Though it was very brief (about 45 minutes), the lockdown represents an unusual and serious disturbance in the life of the Cranbrook community. As of this writing, a few weeks after it happened, the event continues to be a source of conversation and concern at Cranbrook.
This website is the project of several members of the Cranbrook community. It does not seek to condemn, blame or vilify members of the community or the police force. What we seek to do with this project is to raise and publicize several issues around this event that might not otherwise come to light.
Around 8am on April 17, a parent of a Kingswood student called the campus security office to report that they saw what they believed to be a man, wearing a blonde wig and a dress, standing at the school-bus stop on campus. Campus security responded quickly along with local police from the town of Bloomfield Hills. After arriving on the scene and not seeing anyone meeting the person's description, the officials quickly decided to instate a school-wide lockdown - requiring students and teachers to stay within certain confined areas of the school - as police and security conducted a thorough search of the Kingswood dorms and classrooms (the lockdown did not spread across the entire campus, but it was instated at several buildings outside of Kingswood). After about 45 minutes, having not found anything out of the ordinary, the officials called off the lockdown and the school day resumed.
Though it was quite brief, the lockdown attracted a good deal of attention - several media outlets reported the story, and many community residents talked of seeing helicopters hovering around the campus (the helicopter part is a bit mysterious - these seem to have been news copters). Such lockdowns have happened at Cranbrook in the past, but are few and far between - the last such occurrence in recent memory was a response to September 11, 2001.
Rumors quickly spread around the community (which is comprised of an elementary school, two middle schools, a high school, and a graduate degree program). One rumor had it that the suspicious person had been actively trying to break into the Kingswood dorms, but police and media reported nothing of the sort.
The event continues to be talked about, and raises questions within the community about what should (and should not) be standard protocol when the community is potentially threatened.
