Redmond High School's campus was cleared out and closed Wednesday night after police discovered a suspicious package on the property at 17272 NE 104th St, prompting officers to ask drivers to steer clear of the area while the item was evaluated. The closure came just days before the Lake Washington School District's academic year is set to begin, at a time when staff would normally be busy prepping classrooms and facilities for students.
According to a RedmondWaPD post shared Wednesday evening, the Redmond Police Department was actively investigating the package and cleared the surrounding area out of an abundance of caution while officers assessed it. The department told the public to avoid the area, use alternate routes, and call 911 only to report an incident in progress, adding that updates would follow as more information became available. As of the post, the campus remained closed while the evaluation continued.
An attached bilingual graphic circulated by police reinforced the message in stark terms, reading Police Activity — Avoid the Area, with the same warning repeated in Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, and Russian, underscoring how seriously the department wanted the advisory taken across Redmond's diverse community.
Why Redmond Police Needed Backup to Clear the Scene
Redmond Police does not maintain its own bomb disposal unit, so officers evaluating potential explosives typically lean on regional partners. Per the City of Redmond, the department relies on inter-agency safety agreements with specialized units such as the Bellevue Police Department's Explosives Disposal Unit and the King County Sheriff's Office to render safe or assess suspicious items found on local properties. Redmond Police also operates a Drone as First Responder program, which gives officers rapid aerial footage and perimeter surveillance during high-risk calls and outdoor searches, a tool the department has used before to support ground units without putting officers directly in harm's way.
State guidance shapes how districts and police handle these moments. The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction directs schools to evaluate bomb and package threats case-by-case alongside police, and advises against automatic evacuations unless a physical device is visually obvious. Under Washington law, the stakes for anyone found to have deliberately caused this kind of scare are steep: RCW 9.61.160 makes it a Class B felony to threaten to bomb or injure a school building or to knowingly communicate false bomb information, and the statute explicitly bars using a hoax as a legal defense.
A Campus Already in the Middle of Construction and Change
The timing places the incident in an unusually active period for Redmond High School. Demolition and construction on a new classroom addition began at the campus in December 2025, funded by a voter-approved 2022 Capital Construction Levy, meaning the property was already in flux before Wednesday's closure. The Lake Washington School District's 2026–27 school year for grades 1 through 12 is scheduled to begin August 31, and the district has also planned a district-wide Back-to-School Jam for Saturday at nearby Juanita High School to hand out free backpacks, supplies, and meals to local families.
Wednesday's response also echoes a prior chapter in the district's history. In February 2016, written bomb threats discovered at both Redmond High School and Juanita High School forced closures and led to joint property sweeps by Redmond Police and Washington State Patrol K-9 teams, as reported by the Redmond Reporter at the time.
It remains unclear whether the package found Wednesday was ultimately determined to be hazardous or turned out to be a forgotten item, and police had not specified exactly where on the property it was located. It's also not yet known whether any summer staff or student athletes on campus were evacuated during the closure. Redmond Police said it would share more details as the investigation developed.
