SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Words were not enough when it came to the tactics San Antonio police used to bring a five-hour-long standoff to an end Tuesday afternoon.
Chief William McManus said a team made up of SWAT officers, negotiators, and others finally took custody of the suspect, identified as Carlos Herrera, 35, with the help of a four-legged officer.
“We put a dog in. The dog located him,” McManus said. “We found him up in the attic, in a crawl space. He was covered by a bunch of sweaters.”
For about five hours, negotiators had been trying to convince Herrera to come out of the home, located in the 600 block of Taft Street on the Southwest Side.
McManus said the ordeal began with a call around 6:15 a.m. for a shooting in progress.
Officers who responded found a woman in her 30s, who shared the home with Herrera, suffering from a gunshot wound to her head and other injuries.
“I don’t know what the relationship was but significant other,” McManus said. “(He) pistol-whipped her, shot her, and then ran into the house.”
The victim, at last check, was in critical condition.
Police shut down streets in the area and kept people at a distance from the home as they worked to bring Herrera, who they believed to be armed, out of the home.
“Nothing like this has happened (before),” said Julia Alvarez, who lives down the street from the commotion.
Alvarez said she woke up to a massive police presence in her neighborhood unlike anything she had seen before.
“I thought the helicopter was going to fall on my roof,” she said. “I said, ‘What’s going on?’ And then my neighbor across the street calls me and said, ‘Look outside the door.’”
Officers went to neighbors on either side of Herrera’s home and asked them to leave for their own safety.
Alvarez and others did their best to keep their distance.
Abel Perales, though, ventured closer, capturing the action on his phone with a live stream on social media.
“I was just taking a look at it and seeing what happens,” Perales said, explaining. “Hopefully everything goes out well.”
Shortly after the lunch hour began, McManus announced that the standoff had ended peacefully with the suspect in custody.
Herrera faces a long list of charges, McManus said.