A hoax bomb among donations caused police to shut down a Goodwill for almost two hours Friday in northwest suburban Des Plaines.
Police responded to a call of a possible bomb at 3:40 p.m. at the Goodwill in a shopping complex at 1521 Lee Street, Des Plaines police Chief William Kushner told reporters at the scene. The fake bomb was among items that had recently been donated to the nonprofit.
“We don’t know if it was a hoax device trying to illicit a response from law enforcement, if it was a probative attack to see what the response criteria would be, or if it was somebody just discarding something they thought would be cool to get rid of,” Kushner said, adding that the investigation is ongoing.
After police evacuated the store and isolated the device, the Cook County sheriff’s police bomb squad was called. With the use of a bomb dog, technicians found that the inert object was “made of common materials made to look like a bomb,” Kushner said.
The evacuation was lifted and the store began to resume business at 5:10 p.m.
