Stunned by Stand-off
SWAT situation ends with apparent suicide
The Inter-Mountain photos by Edgar Kelley Evans Drive resident Paul Manolidis points toward the house next door to his own where a lengthy standoff between police and a man barricaded inside the home occurred Thursday night.
Boards now cover most of the windows of the house on Evans Drive in Elkins where police officers were involved in a standoff with a man barricaded inside the home Thursday night.
The Inter-Mountain photos by Edgar Kelley Evans Drive resident Paul Manolidis points toward the house next door to his own where a lengthy standoff between police and a man barricaded inside the home occurred Thursday night.
Boards now cover most of the windows of the house on Evans Drive in Elkins where police officers were involved in a standoff with a man barricaded inside the home Thursday night.
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ELKINS -- An hours-long standoff between law enforcement and a man barricaded inside his own home ended late Thursday evening with police entering the house and finding the man dead of an apparent suicide, officials said.
Elkins City Police Chief Travis Bennett said the incident began when the EPD SWAT team was sent to a house on Evans Drive in South Elkins in an attempt to serve a felony warrant on an individual accused of making terroristic threats.
"Based on intelligence and prior communications with this individual, the decision was made to follow our high-risk warrant service protocol," Bennett said Friday. "That includes use of our SWAT officers and the department's MRAP vehicle, as well as a public notice to shelter in place and the evacuation of nearby residences as a precaution."
Once on scene, officers learned the suspect refused to leave the residence and had barricaded himself inside the house.
"The suspect had made it known that he was armed and ready to confront law enforcement officers with deadly force and had prepared his residence for a standoff," said Bennett. "Once we were on scene and had evacuated the neighboring residences, we found that the suspect had indeed barricaded himself inside the house and was refusing to come out."
The standoff began at approximately 6:30 p.m. and for the next several hours law enforcement officers continued to negotiate with the suspect in hopes of getting a peaceful surrender. During this time the suspect continued threatening that he would shoot any police officer who tried to enter the home, officials said.
Officers attempted on numerous occasions to force the suspect out of the house with non-lethal chemical irritants, Bennett said. At approximately 10:30 p.m., SWAT officers deployed flash-bang grenades and additional chemical irritants and then entered the house.
Once inside they discovered that the suspect had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Bennett said. There was no one else in the home at the time.
The Elkins Police Department had not released the suspect's name at press time, saying the investigation was still ongoing.
"Upon entering, my officers observed that the suspect had installed heavy barricades and other fortifications in the house," Bennett said. "They found the suspect deceased with a self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Paul Manolidis, who lives next door to the house in which the man barricaded himself, told The Inter-Mountain Friday he was sitting at his table eating dinner when the incident began.
"It was a big shock to me," Manolidis said. "I've lived here 30 years and other than normal neighbors bickering, it's always a quiet neighborhood. I never dreamed something like this would go on. And it's not just a shock to me because some of the other neighbors were concerned as well. I really didn't get much sleep last night thinking about it."
Manolidis said the EPD came to his door Thursday evening and asked him and his wife to leave the residence because they might be in danger due to the situation next door. He said the two of them got in his truck and watched everything unfold from the end of the street.
"I've seen a lot of things in my life, but I've never witnessed something like what went on last night with that many police," he said. "I have to give the police a lot of credit, though, they were very professional and did everything they could do to talk him out of the house."
Manolidis said he had met the suspect once and that he just introduced himself by his first name. He said the man had moved in with a woman next door about two months ago and that he was from Missouri.
"I told one of the police officers afterward that I had heard him over there pounding with a hammer a couple times recently, probably around 11 or 12 o'clock at night he would do it," said Manolidis. "I guess from what I heard is that he had a bunch of barricades in one of those back bedrooms of the house."
During the incident, the City of Elkins put a shelter-in-place order in effect, Residents of the First Ward area of South Elkins were asked to not go outside, not answer their doors, and to stay away from windows.
Bennett confirmed that the only shot fired during the incident was the one with which the suspect took his own life.
"I'm really proud of the skill and professionalism shown by all of the officers and other personnel who helped out," he said. "I'm grateful for the assistance of the Randolph County Sheriff's Office, the West Virginia State Police, the Elkins Fire Department and Randolph County EMS."