A nanny and her cool-thinking are being credited for keeping safe the three young children in her care.
She and the trio were forced at gunpoint into a bathroom during a home invasion in LaGrange on Friday morning, police said.
The ordeal began at about 8:30 a.m. when the nanny and three children, ages 2, 5 and 6, were outside an apartment complex near 47th Street and LaGrange Road and were approached by three men, said police.
The men calmly told the nanny to go back into the apartment, then led the nanny and children into a bathroom and told them not to come out.
The nanny cooperated and stayed in the bathroom for about 45 minutes until she was certain the men had left, and she then exited the bathroom and called police.
The apartment had been ransacked, but the nanny and children were not harmed.
"I think she did a great job when having to make a tough choice. She did what she was supposed to do," said Chief Michael Holub.
Random or not, the brazen home invasion home has rattled some residents of this low-crime community, including Noelle Brown, who recently moved to LaGrange from the East Coast and has a new baby on the way.
"If I hadn't gone with my sister-in-law to breakfast, I would have been coming home just as they were getting robbed, and I live downstairs, so I have to go past their apartment to get to mine. So, that could have been me," said Brown.
Police said one of the suspects carried a dark semi-automatic gun. Police are continuing to investigate.
