A gunman who repeatedly fired at police officers near San Diego worldwide Airport Wednesday – and prevented any commercial flights from landing there – was finally arrested after a five-hour standoff, authorities said. The community is in the vicinity of the airport, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to bar all incoming flights from landing, NBC San Diego reported. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
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The officers were responding to a domestic violence call when they heard gunshots at the area a little after 9am local time. Departing flights were not affected because they take off in another direction, away from the apartment complex.
Arriving planes swoop low over the neighborhood where the domestic violence suspect was holed up in a rooftop apartment, shooting sporadically.
Police shut down a neighborhood and an airport Wednesday as part of a standoff with an armed felon in the Banker’s Hill area of San Diego. “The officers were able to safely retreat and set up a perimeter around the apartment”, San Diego Police Department spokesman Lieutenant Scott Wahl told reporters at the scene in footage broadcast by CNN.
Officers responded to the man’s apartment after receiving reports of a domestic dispute there. Officers swarmed the building and exchanged gunfire with the man. Officers fired tear gas at one point to attempt to get inside. Police said such activity was fundamental in light of the fact that intermittent shots were being discharged into the methodology way utilized by airplanes. Local schools were placed on lockdown.
Wahl later said the suspect was moved to an area of the apartment where he no longer posed a risk to air traffic. The man was equipped with a powerful rifle, police authority further added.
“I heard a gunshot and went out on my balcony and there was a hole probably this big through my balcony wall”, Tom said, modeling out a hole about five inches wide with his hands.
For about 40 minutes, he cowered in his bathtub, talking to friends on his cellphone.
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The diverted flights instead landed at Los Angeles worldwide Airport. “I hope he realizes that his actions are affecting a lot of people”, she told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
