A search for an adult male who was believed to have barricaded himself into a northside Columbus home following a family disturbance is continuing after Columbus SWAT team members checked inside the home and could not find him.
Columbus police were initially called to the northside Columbus home at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, believing the man was barricaded inside the home with a gun, and was making threats.
The standoff ended at 7:30 p.m. when Columbus Police Department SWAT team members entered the home and searched it, but found it empty. About 20 to 30 police officers were at the scene for most of the afternoon and early evening at a home on Aspen Lane in Flatrock Park North subdivision.
Police took the precautions necessary based on the information they had and utilized the resources to keep officers safe, and the adult male safe as well, Columbus police spokesman Lt. Matt Harris said.
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When officers arrived, they spoke with a member of the household who told them he was able to exit the home after fighting with a family member who was still inside the house with a firearm.
The officers were eventually able to make contact by phone with the man in question and determined that he was not in the home on Aspen Lane, Harris said. It is believed that the man exited the home before officers arrived on scene earlier in the afternoon, he said. There are no pending criminal charges against the man, Harris said.
The one-story, ranch-style home in the 1000 block of Aspen is near the intersection of Northeastern Boulevard, just west of River Road on the western edge of the Columbus Municipal Airport.
The person who was believed to be holding police at bay was identified by neighbors as the 40-year-old son of the homeowners who lived at the Aspen Lane home.
All available local police officers — including Columbus police and Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department deputies — stood in their positions while negotiators attempted to communicate with the man.
Officers spent the first three hours attempting to communicate by shouting into the home, but the early communication was one-way, police said.
Neighbors said the man had texted his ex-wife, and at one point the man’s parents were speaking with police about messages that were on their cell phones.
SWAT team officers approached the home several times, gathering at the door at about 6:50 p.m. and using a loud siren-like disorientation device, before backing away from the home.
They then entered the home at about 7:30 p.m. and searched the home, but did not find him inside.
Because the resident reportedly had a gun, about 15 neighbors on Aspen, Northeastern Boulevard and Cottonwood Boulevard were earlier evacuated from their homes as a precautionary measure, police said.
Those residents were kept in an outside perimeter that was one to two blocks away from their homes. The neighborhood has traffic lanes separated by grass medians with large trees down the middle of the street. The neighbors congregated in the median area, around parked police cars, as the standoff continued.
Robert and Janet Hill, who have lived in the neighborhood for much of their 66 years as a married couple, grew weary of waiting outside the police tape and got into their car to leave and get dinner at about 5:30 p.m.
“We love it out here,” she said of the Flatrock subdivision. “It’s just so safe. We are not afraid out here at all.”
City Council President Frank Miller, whose district includes residents on the north side of Columbus, was among those who gathered on the perimeter of the incident. His son-in-law’s extended family lives across the street from the Aspen Lane home.
Debbie Baker, who lives next door to home where the man was holed up, worried about her daughter who stayed at their house with the family’s dogs.
“She can’t take them out,” she said of the situation as she waited. “I just want him to come out and be OK,” she said. “He texted his ex-wife so we know he’s alive. You just want him to come out of there alive.”
The Rev. John Bundick, a pastor at Community Church of Columbus and a police chaplain, brought dinners and water out to the police officers at the scene.
