Hotel standoff ends with no injuries
By Brian Hagen
(KAIR)--A three hour standoff at an Atchison hotel ended peacefully Tuesday evening. "We have him in custody, and no one's injured, including him," Atchison Police Chief Mike Wilson told MSC News shortly after the standoff was resolved.
It began around 4:30 Tuesday afternoon at the Super 8 Hotel, located at 509 South 9th Street. "We began talking to him, and for the next 3-hours we had a continuous conversation trying to end this peacefully," Wilson said.
According to Wilson, the 37-year-old man, who is not an Atchison resident, barricaded himself in a room of the hotel where he had been staying, and claimed to be armed. "We had evacuated the hotel. No one was in danger other than the officers and the 37-year-old man himself. We continued to negotiate, talk to him, had a conversation with him."
Wilson said the patience of the negotiators paid off. "Shortly after 7:30 then, he surrendered himself out of the room to us."
The man was found to be unarmed. "During the three hours, we dealt with the situation as a possible armed barricaded person. After we took him into custody, we did not find a weapon in the room."
Wilson said the case is being handled as a mental health issue. "We will now have an investigation to determine more specific information as to how long he had been here, and exactly what led to this incident."
The man's name is not made public.
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