I'm hearing that herschel is blocked off by police, where king connects with herschel and, I think, towards the elementary school, SWAT was seen headed towards the area.
Any word?
Reports of a guy with a rifle.
Got a birds eye view leaving work this evening, definitely something crazy going on. They were clearing the entire block, and ordered all the customers out of European Street.
Meth lab bust. Possible hostage situation.
The situation has been resolved. Will try and get details.
thanks everyone,
Loads of Fire Rescue going past my house and turning onto King.
Kind of a dense area to be hiding a meth lab, thank goodness it was discovered before the geniuses blew the block up. There will be lots of fire personnel, that hazmat cleanup for that stuff is ridiculous.
Information now coming down that there was no Meth lab but instead turned out to be a suicidal man. There is apparently an ongoing effort to get him talked down. It appears the drug lab was a red herring.
From JSO:
(http://i.imgur.com/2tHJTzM.jpg)
On Friday, November 22, 2013 the suspect made suicidal and homicidal threats to his wife. The suspect was located at a residence in the 2200 block of Park Street. During the investigation, the SWAT team was called, a warrant was obtained, and the suspect was subsequently taken into custody by the SWAT team.
During the standoff, the suspect was in possession of a firearm and threatened to use it until it was taken from him. The suspect was arrested on the warrant for Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon. The warrant has a $500,000 bond.
Suspect
Joshua Boatman
White male, 35 years old
As a great side note, the folks at E-Street made their way down to Lola's and proceeded to consume a few hundred bucks worth of beverages that night. So that was great to see that the folks kept it all in the neighborhood for the night. I love Riverside, we don't let some swat or police get in the way of our fun.
If I saw a swat team thundering down the street in front of my dining spot, I would consume a couple of hundreds of dollars worth of beverages by myself, but would have gone to Pele's instead. Scary!