Tuesday, April 6, 2004 | 11:18 a.m.
Dozens of families were kept out of their homes Monday night and thousands of commuters were forced to find an alternative route to work this morning because of a standoff between a man and police in a Henderson neighborhood near Lake Mead Parkway and Gibson Road.
The standoff continued as late as 10 this morning in the 800 block of Viento del Montagna Avenue.
Police fired about 30 rounds of tear gas into the home shortly before 9:30 a.m. Fifteen minutes later more tear gas was fired into the home, which is separated from Lake Mead Parkway by a block wall, Henderson Police spokesman Shane Lewis said this morning. The man remained inside the building, with Henderson and Metro Police and SWAT teams crowding the streets outside, Lewis said.
Henderson Police responded to the scene just after 2 p.m. Monday after a woman called 911, explaining that her daughter was being held inside a home by her boyfriend.
Police convinced the man to release his girlfriend, Jill Powers, shortly after they arrived at the scene. She was unharmed, police said.
Making matters worse was the fact that the man has about a dozen pit bulls in his home.
Residents who spent the night outdoors believing the standoff soon would be over were tired this morning but found humor in their situation.
Juan Flores, a craps dealer at the Fremont hotel, spent his 46th birthday sitting on a block wall overlooking police activity and his home three houses down.
Police would not let him and the others pass the yellow police tape.
"I didn't think it would last so long," said Flores, who was allowed by police to leave his home at 5 p.m. Monday to go to work.
"This is usually a quiet neighborhood. Nothing happens here," he said.
He said he hoped the situation would be over so he could get some sleep for work today.
Commuters this morning were doubly delayed by the closure of the Lake Mead exit at U.S. 95 attributed to the standoff.
A 21-year-old electrician and his 24-year-old co-worker were eating breakfast near a construction site off Gibson Road this morning.
"The Lake Mead exit was closed and that was a pain because we had to go up to Horizon Drive and it was backed up there also," said the who declined to give his name. "We were supposed to get to work at 6:30 today but we didn't get there until 7:15."
The man involved in the standoff was evicted from the house Monday and Powers said she had a feeling he would do something drastic.
She explained that her boyfriend had spent 12 years in prison, had a "very rough childhood" and was going through financial problems.
"I took a day off of work today (Monday) because I thought this might happen," she said. "He had talked about it before."
SWAT officers responded to the house and dozens of homes in the line of fire were taped off after Powers notified police that the man was armed with several guns, police said.
After three hours of negotiation, police set off several loud, flashing distraction devices to try to "create an urgency" and get the man out of the house. The man, however, became angry and fired several shots toward the officers from one of the home's windows.
No one was hit and Henderson police did not return fire, police said.
Police said they would do whatever they could to keep the man and his dogs from being harmed.
Powers, described her boyfriend as a "good guy deep down."
Henderson Animal Control was contacted and would be available to take care of the dogs as soon as the standoff was over, police said.
Residents anxiously Monday night gathered behind the police tape. At midnight, 10 hours after the standoff began, police broke the news that no one would be allowed back into their homes because the man had fired several shots out of a second story window.
The American Red Cross was called out to provide residents with a place to stay for the night, police said.
Joyce and Richard Kahn said at first they were angry that police had sectioned off such a large area, until they heard the round of gunfire.
"Well when I got home I thought, 'I live down the block and this is ridiculous that I can't go to my house after work,' " Richard Kahn said. "But then we heard the 'Pow, Pow, Pow,' and everyone backed up. When I saw Joyce duck I thought, 'We're not going back in until the coast is clear."'
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