Atlanta cops in 14-hour “armed standoff” with nobody
Tuesday, April 27th, 2004 • Filed under Uncategorized
Fox (search) News tells the tale of Cobb County police, who “surrounded a suburban Atlanta house in a 14-hour armed standoff”. The cops sat outside with guns drawn, using bullhorns to negotiate. The problem is, there was nobody home.
The whole anticlimactic incident began Thursday afternoon when a repossession man showed up at the house in Powder Springs, about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta, reports WSB-TV.As often happens, the man who lived there wasn’t happy to see his car taken away. He pulled a gun, and the repo man called the cops.
Cobb County authorities sealed off the entire neighborhood, preventing residents from entering or leaving, as they tried to smoke out the unnamed gunman with tear gas.
In an effort to communicate with the man, who had neither said anything or fired a shot, police also threw two cell phones into the house, but got no response.
One would presume that the repo man wouldn’t lie, so I assume that the incident actually happened. (Although the “gunman” could easily have confused the repo man with a car thief.)
Regardless of what actually happened between the two men, it clearly looks like the man had left home before the cops even arrived. It leads me to wonder why there was a stand-off to begin with. I realize that the police need to be cautious when dealing with someone accused of illegally brandishing a firearm, but keeping residents from their homes, using tear gas, and sitting outside the house for 14 hours seems a little extreme.