A 64-year-old man is facing charges after allegedly threatening a man with a gun and resisting police orders while barricading himself inside his apartment Monday night.
The man was arrested Monday at about 10 PM following a standoff that began after police responded to a report around 6 PM from someone claiming that he pointed a gun at them outside an apartment complex at 1889 North Cerritos Rd. and told them to leave the area.
According to police, the man made derogatory remarks about the reporting party’s race.
When officers arrived at the complex, where the man is a tenant, he first threatened to come out his apartment with a gun and then barricaded himself inside. A SWAT team was called in to take control of the situation and negotiate with him.
He remained uncooperative and tear gas was used to force him out, according to officials. After detaining him, officers searched his home and found a 9mm handgun inside, authorities said.
“This was apparently an argument between a man and a person who works at the apartment,” Palm Springs Police Chief Andy Mills said at the scene Monday evening. “The suspect said something about the other man’s race and showed a weapon. When officers went to handle the assault he barricaded himself in.”
The man was booked into the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats and resisting a police officer, where he remained Tuesday afternoon on $25,000 bail. He is scheduled to make his initial appearance at the Larson Justice Center on Thursday.
Police initially alerted the public to avoid the area near the apartment complex at 6:48 PM. During the standoff, some residents of the apartment complex reported that they were asked to stay in their units, while others closer to the unit where the man was holed up were evacuated in preparation for police deploying tear gas.
