A four-hour standoff with a resident barricading himself in a Bradford house and throwing guns at police officers ended Thursday afternoon with no one injured, according to Westerly Police Chief Shawn Lacey.
The resident, Manuel Valles, 57, was detained and taken to Westerly Hospital for treatment, Lacey said.
The incident “involved the subject with screams, shouts and orders to everyone in the neighborhood from a window on the second floor,” said Lacey.
At around 9:50 am, his wife called the police, who answered the house at 29 Canterbury Drive and found that Valles “broke all the exterior windows, threw objects out of the windows and threatened officers,” Lacey said via email.
Valles also threw knives and swords at the officers and “pointed a rifle but threw it out the window in the front yard,” said Lacey.
Lacey said the police tried to negotiate with him “because he shattered things in the house”. Police had previously looked into Valles and said he previously had problems related to mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Among those who responded to the call was the psychiatrist assigned to the department. According to Lacey, the police also assembled their SWAT team to use gas grenades in the house to evict Valles.
Police eventually went into the house, found Valles in a crawl space on the second floor, and took him into custody, which, according to Lacey, ended the incident around 2 p.m. Charges will be brought, he said.
According to Lacey, the house was uninhabitable due to extensive damage. Police say Valles also flooded the entire first floor by blocking the sinks and draining the water.
With the help of the WARM shelter in Westerly, the police found another place to live for Valles’ wife and an adult child, according to Lacey. Neither of them were in the house when the police entered. The woman had called the police from the yard and was escorted from the property by the police.
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