Reports of a Girl with Knife at Rock Run May be Exaggerated

Police with the Will County Forest Preserve received a call Sept. 1 alleging that a girl was running around the trail with a long knife, but despite the report, it appears the incident was more of a misunderstanding, according to police.

Two women had reportedly seen a girl on the Rock Run trail with a long knife, according to police. The alleged knife-wielding girl left the preserve in a car, but not before the license plate numbers were grabbed and given to police.

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Police went to the home of the girl’s mom and spoke to her.

“She stated her 14-year-old daughter was at the preserve and she went there to pick her up,” Will County Forest Preserve Police Lt. Tracy Chapman said. “According to the 14-year-old girl, she was standing by the pond and a man came up to her and asked her if she was feeding the fish. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t say anything inappropriate. There was no issue there, but she got creeped out in regard to stranger danger and she ran away from him.”

When she was running through the preserve, the 14 year old had a multi-tool knife in her pocket that the teen said she never pulled out, but police assume she had it clipped to the outside of her pocket.

“So when she was running through the preserve the two women must have seen it on her pocket,” Chapman said. “We don’t know if the girl pulled her pocket knife out and was running with it in her hand because she was scared. She said she never pulled it out.”

The teen then called her mom, who came and picked her up.

The original report, which was sent to Patch via Facebook from a concerned citizen, said the girl came out of an off-path area and that she had a “huge knife” in her hand.

“She had the handle in her hand and the blade came more than halfway up her arm,” the report said.