Government Center locked down

A sheriff's investigator inadvertently became the subject of an emergency situation at the St. Croix County Government Center in Hudson Friday.

The building was locked down for about 10 minutes during the noon hour following a report that a man with guns had entered the building. Sheriff Dennis Hillstead said that one of his investigators had returned from conducting a search warrant and had a number of stolen guns.

When the plain-clothes deputy got out of his car with two rifles and headed across the parking lot to the evidence room and the south side of the building, a person on the second floor saw him with the guns and yelled out an alert, the sheriff said.

"We went into lock-down in which everybody is secured in their offices on both floors, then went through each office," said Hillstead.

"When we talked with the witness and she described the person and guns, we realized it was one of our investigators," the sheriff said. The sheriff said news reports of the recent shooting incident on the Northern Illinois University campus Thursday afternoon might have made a lot of people jumpy.

As far as the incident goes, he said, "On the one hand it had to be fairly frightening for a lot of people in the courthouse; on the other hand it was a good training for our people."

"We have done a number of night-time training sessions in the courthouse with an armed subject, but nobody was in the offices," the sheriff said.

"Although you always see some areas we might need to look at more closely, all in all, it went fairly well," Hillstead added.

Authorities said Prairie Elementary School and Hudson Middle School were also locked down as part of the emergency procedure.

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