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Resident says village alert was too vague after police search; police chief apologizes
Summary
At the May 12 Villa Park Board of Trustees meeting, resident Lynn Smith criticized a community alert that described a woman only as 'a black woman with a black puffer coat.' The police chief apologized and said officers had limited information while responding to a violent incident in another community.
A Villa Park resident told the Village of Villa Park Board of Trustees on May 12 that a recent community alert describing “a black woman with a black puffer coat” left her feeling vulnerable and urged the police department to include more detail in future messages.
"It just literally had a black woman with a black puffer coat. There was no height. There was no hair color. There was no size," said Lynn Smith of 2100 Ovaltine Court during public comment, describing how she received the alert while at a nearby Walgreens and briefly feared she might be the subject of the notice.
The village’s police chief apologized and said officers had “very little information to go on” when they issued the alert. "We had, like, milliseconds to observe the person who ran from their car," the chief said, adding that the department believed a violent act had been committed in a neighboring community and that officers were working to apprehend multiple suspects.
The chief said the department’s goal was to protect the community and that officers felt urgency because they believed the incident involved serious violence: "So that's all the information we had... a violent act was committed in another community, so it's imperative that we caught these 4 individuals, which we did. So, again, sorry for that."
Smith thanked the board for the opportunity to comment and characterized her remarks as constructive feedback, saying the alert’s lack of detail made some residents feel unsafe. The chief’s remarks explained the department’s operational constraints but did not state any changes to the alert process.
No formal action was taken during the meeting on the topic; the exchange occurred during the public comment period.
