Merced man, 51, arrested without incident after five-hour standoff with police
A standoff that lasted nearly five hours between a 51-year old Merced man and police ended without incident when the suspect surrendered to officers Friday night, according to Merced police.
Officers responded to reports of a man with a rifle in his front yard in the 1500 block of East 21st Street at 3:23 p.m. Friday.
“We had witnesses report of him waving an AR-15 style rifle in his front yard,” said Capt. Joe Weiss. “He was pointing it at people and yelled at one person to stay off his property.”
Witnessed described flames coming from the barrel.
When officers arrived they attempted to contact suspect Brian Arredando of Merced, but he ran from officers and barricaded himself into his residence at 1550 East 21st Street.
“He ran inside and refused to talk to us,” Weiss said.
The suspect’s mother was also in the residence, according to Weiss. She was willing to come outside and cooperated with police.
The Merced Police Department Crisis Negations Team responded and attempted to negotiate a surrender. After 3 hours, the Merced Police Department’s SWAT team was deployed to assist.
At 8:10 p.m., Arredando surrendered to officers without incident.
According to Weiss, police searched the house and the weapon that was believed to be an AR-15 rifle was a pellet gun with a “roman candle” attached to the barrel.
Arredondo was arrested for allegedly resisting arrest, brandishing a weapon and vandalism.
Police were forced to close East 21st Street from Keely Avenue to Highland Drive during the standoff.
Merced Police are asking anyone with any information regarding this incident to contact Officer A. Arias at 209-388-7755 or by email at AriasA@cityofmerced.org.
