ASHLAND — A SWAT situation on Liberty Street ended peacefully Tuesday when police convinced a man threatening suicide to leave his home to be taken to the hospital.
The incident began around 10:30 or 11 a.m. when the man received bad news and began making threats to harm himself at University Hospitals Samaritan Health Center on Mifflin Avenue, according to Ashland Police Chief Dave Marcelli.
Shortly thereafter, a police officer spotted the man’s vehicle pulling into his residence on the 400 block of Liberty Street and saw the man running into the house.
“Once we were here, we couldn’t just leave and run the risk that he would harm himself,” Marcelli said.
At that point, Marcelli said he and several other police and Ashland County Sheriff’s officers went to the house, set up a perimeter with police tape and went door-to-door to notify neighbors of the situation.
Neighbors were told they may evacuate or remain sheltered in place, Marcelli said.
Police obtained a phone number for the man’s son, who was in the home at the time. Det. Kim Mager began talking to him by phone and eventually was able to talk the man into coming out of the house around 2:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, police contacted Ashland City Schools Supt. Doug Marrah and transportation supervisor Doug Shipper. The school officials rerouted a bus of middle and high school from the area to Trinity Lutheran Church to be picked up by parents.
The man “put up a little bit of resistance” when he left the house, Marcelli said. Police used several non-lethal bean bag rounds when the man began to run back into the house, according to Marcelli.
Marcelli said police were initially unaware whether the man had any weapons. They later learned the man did have a handgun in the house, and at one point he told police he was holding the gun to his head.
The man was taken to University Hospitals Samaritan Hospital for evaluation but had no apparent injuries.
“Once again, great cooperation with the sheriff’s office and the school,” Marcelli said. “These types of incidents take a lot of personnel to handle them effectively just to contain the situation and work on long term solvability of the situation.”
The incident remains under investigation, Marcelli said.
