SWAT officers with the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) were called to a neighborhood in City Heights Saturday after a man – believed to be armed and suicidal – barricaded himself inside a home.
Heavy police activity filled 45th and Quince streets around 12 p.m. The SDPD said a man in his 20s, possibly armed with weapons, had holed himself up inside an apartment in the 4400 block of Quince Street.
A SWAT unit was called to the scene and a standoff ensued.
SDPD Lt. Charles Lara said officers were called to check the welfare of the suicidal man around 10 a.m. Officers asked him to surrender and tried to negotiate with him for several hours.
Ultimately, Lara said the man called 911 and then killed himself.
No one else was injured. He was home alone at the time of the incident.
During the standoff, residents in the area were ordered by SWAT and police officers to shelter-in-place.
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Such was the case for Lindsay Nissan, who has lived in the neighborhood for about a year.
Nissan told NBC 7 she left her apartment around 10:40 a.m. to walk her dogs. As she stepped outside, she noticed an officer perched on her neighbor's patio.
The officer, staking out the suspect's apartment, told Nissan to go back inside her home. About 20 minutes later, Nissan looked out her window and saw dozens of SWAT officers parked all over her street, guns in hand.
Nissan said many of the officers had surrounded a staircase leading to an apartment complex across the street from her home.
“They were blocking the staircase to make sure everyone in our units was safe. They had our residents go inside of our houses and stay in the back part of our apartments to make sure he didn’t have access to us,” she explained.
Nissan said her unit is very close to the apartment where the man was holed up. She said SWAT officials, fearing for her safety, told her she needed to evacuate as a precaution.
SWAT officers escorted her out safely and she waited for a friend to pick her up. Nissan was grateful that police acted swiftly and that no bystanders were hurt.
She said she has seen some safety improvements to City Heights over the past year, but situations like this are extremely frightening.
“When things like this happen, it doesn’t make me want to stay," she told NBC 7.
The man's name was not released. Lara said he was a member of the U.S. military.
