WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah, Sept. 5, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — A SWAT standoff Monday night in West Valley City ended much more quietly than it began.
West Valley City police received a call at 5:21 p.m. about a 27-year-old man who had been arguing with his wife, in text messages and on the phone, for most of the day, West Valley Police Lt. Steve Burke said.
The man’s wife told police her husband, after arguing with her all day, had shown up at the house intoxicated and took their 3-year-old son for a drive, Burke said. The man then sent his wife a text message saying he was taking their son to Wendover.
Instead, the man returned with the child and, according to his wife, took out a gun and showed her that it was loaded.
That’s when the woman, who lives with the child in her parents’ home, got her parents, the child and herself out of the house and called police.
Lt. Burke said between 20 and 25 officers, including SWAT and a negotiation team, responded and set up a containment area. They attempted to reach the husband by phone. When they received no answer, the wife suggested that his phone might be dead because he’d been calling her all day.
It turned out, though, that the suspect had slipped through the containment area and was no longer on the property. At that point, the standoff came to a standstill, and officers started thinking about moving the family to a different location until the husband could be found.
It was then that the husband came walking down the street and expressed surprise at seeing all the police officers around the house. He was taken into custody at 9:50 p.m., Burke said, and police recovered his handgun.
Burke said the man had never pointed the gun at anyone or made any direct threat, and there may have been some embellishment of details when the police were initially called. The man remains in custody and will possibly be charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief, Burke said.
He added that authorities are running the man’s fingerprints through Immigration and Customs Enforcement and, in the event that he is an illegal alien, he will be detained under a federal order.
