A suspicious package was found aboard a CTA el train at the Forest Park Blue Line station in Forest Park at 2:59 p.m. on Thursday.
According to Police Chief James Ryan, a CTA employee who found the black plastic box called a CTA supervisor, who opened it and saw what appeared to be wires. The supervisor put the box down on the platform and called police.
The station was evacuated, and police contacted the Cook County Bomb Squad. Ryan said that the bomb squad “responded in minutes,” and proceeded to x-ray the package. Finding its contents to be suspicious, they detonated the package.
Ryan said that Forest Park detectives and evidence technicians gathered the materials left over and notified the FBI. The remainders of the package were turned over to the federal Terrorism Task Force for further investigation.
He said that the police had not heard any results of the task force’s investigation.
During the time that the station was shut down, Ryan said, Pace buses shuttled passengers between Desplaines and Harlem avenues. The station reopened at about 5:30 p.m.
A stretch of Desplaines Avenue beginning at Jackson and stretching past the Eisenhower Expressway was closed until about 4 p.m.
Ryan said he was pleased with the reaction to the situation. “It was an excellent response…great cooperation,” he said.
He said that he did not know of any other time that something like this had occurred in Forest Park.
