Standoff at S.C. Home Ends with Shootings
TheCarolinaChannel.com
MAULDIN, S.C. -- A Greenville County deputy and his father were killed early Wednesday morning after a five-hour standoff at their Mauldin home.
Police arrested a suspect inside the home after a SWAT team forced its way into the home.
Deputy Antonio Joselita “Joe” Sapinoso, 34, (pictured, right)and his father, Antonio L. Sapinoso, were shot at the home at 312 Chetsworth Lane. Both were taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital, where they died from multiple gunshots.
The home in the Ashford subdivision was where the deputy lived with his parents.
Sapinoso was off-duty at the time of the shooting, investigators told News 4.
“He was just off duty, there at his parent’s house,” Greenville County Sheriffs Office spokesman Michael Hildebrand told News 4. “He just happened to be there when the incident happened.”
Investigators said that Kamell Delshaun Evans (pictured, right) of Greer, 26, was arrested at the home and is charged with murder and kidnapping, as well as other charges.
Evans was the former boyfriend of Deputy Sapinoso’s sister, Christina Sapinoso Rodriguez, investigators said.
Investigators described the relationship between the two as “stormy.”
The standoff began at about 11:15 p.m. Tuesday when Mauldin police were dispatched to the home after an emergency call from Rodriguez.
Rodriguez told investigators that she got a phone call late Tuesday night from Evans, who said that he had kidnapped her brother and father.
When police arrived and saw a man inside the home with a gun, they called in the Greenville County SWAT team.
The standoff lasted until about 4 a.m. when SWAT Team members forced their way into the home.
“After several hours of trying to communicate with the subject, around 3:30 a.m., we heard several gunshots inside the residence,” Greenville County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Michael Hildebrand told News 4. “We did have to force entry into the house. We found that we did have two individuals inside who had received gunshot wounds.”
Investigators said that the kidnapper was waiting outside for the deputy to get home from work after providing security at the Greenville County Council meeting on Tuesday night.
The kidnapper took Sapinoso’s service pistol at gunpoint and ordered him to go into the house, investigators said.
Inside the house, Sapinoso was restrained with his own handcuffs, investigators said.
The Sheriff’s Office said that they do not have any idea what prompted the shooting.
When the SWAT team searched the house, they found the deputy’s mother and 7-year-old nephew huddled in an upstairs closet.
The boy is Rodriguez’s son, investigators said.
During the course of the standoff, officers and deputies closed off part of the subdivision and evacuated people from homes in the area.
Sapinoso had worked for the Sheriff’s Office for more than five years and was a well-liked deputy, Greenville County Sheriff Steve Loftis said.
“You never heard anybody say a negative word about him. Regardless of what was going on, he always had a smile on his face,” Loftis said.