Lakewood police believe a suspect who surprised a woman in a Lakewood office early Thursday had also robbed a store an hour earlier, officials say.
Lakewood SWAT officers using a K-9 dog and a robot searched but could not find the suspect in an office near West 10th Avenue and Kipling Street where a possibly armed intruder surprised a woman when she went to work.
Lakewood police closed off Kipling Street from West Colfax to West 6th avenues so that commuters would not be in the area when they searched for the suspect, said Steve Davis, Lakewood police spokesman.
Nearby Lakewood High School, 9700 W. 8th Ave., was placed on lock-down status as a precaution, according to a notice by Jefferson County Public School. All students are safe inside the building, and business is progressing as usual, the notice says.
The woman entered a business near West 10th Avenue and Kipling at 5:30 a.m. and encountered an intruder inside the office that she said may have been armed with a handgun, Davis said.
“She ran away immediately. She’s fine,” he said.
Lakewood police arrived at the scene within minutes. The department mobilized SWAT officers and called in a K-9 and a robot to enter the business. Kipling was closed down in both directions.
“Right now it’s an overabundance of caution,” Davis said. “We didn’t want to have people in the area when we went in.”
