Richland sheriff praises ‘successful’ end after shootout in northeast Columbia community
An hours long standoff in a northeast Columbia neighborhood in which shots were fired between a man on a roof and Richland County deputies ended without bloodshed Friday night, bringing praises from Sheriff Leon Lott.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department was “very fortunate ... that one of our deputies didn’t get shot or hurt,” Lott said.
“I have to credit our deputies for having a lot of restraint.”
At about 6:30 p.m., a resident of the Briarcliffe neighborhood called 911 to report a man was on top of the roof at a neighboring house with a handgun. Richland County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrived along with its SWAT and special response teams. Houses around the block were evacuated. They found the man armed with the gun and a knife, Lott said.
After negotiating for the man to come down for nearly two hours, the man began firing at deputies, Lott said at a news conference Friday night at the sheriff’s department headquarters. Deputies fired back but did not hit the man. Snipers were on standby to shoot the man if needed but did not fire, Lott said. The man began to fire again, eventually unloading a whole clip of bullets and reloading. Deputies fired tear gas at the man, which got him off the roof, according to Lott.
After leaving the roof, the man ran away, jumped over a fence, and deputies used their stun guns to subdue the man. The man was not severely injured and no deputies were physically hurt though they may have experienced trauma from being shot at, Lott said.
Lott said the man appeared to be in a mental health crisis and that he might have been attempting suicide by police. The apparent mental health crisis “played into some of the decisions that we made,” Lott said.
The standoff was “by the books” and its bloodless end made it “very successful,” he said.
“It was a team effort,” Lott said. “Everyone did what they needed to do.”
The man was taken to a hospitalize where his mental health will be evaluated, Lott said. A decision whether to put him into a mental health facility or jail will follow the evaluation.
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 11:39 PM.