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By Jens Dana
Deseret Morning News
UTAH COUNTY, UTAH — For the third time in a month, a SWAT team in Utah County was deployed to defuse a volatile situation.
“It really has been kind of busy lately,” said Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Shaun Bufton, a SWAT tactical commander who was on the scene at the latest standoff Wednesday night at a home near 3200 West and 440 South in Lake Shore, a small community about five miles west of Spanish Fork.
This time, Utah County SWAT was able to take a 66-year-old Spanish Fork man into custody after a half-hour standoff, Bufton said. The SWAT team was called out after the man’s wife told emergency dispatchers he was toting a gun and threatening her, himself and law enforcement officers. She managed to escape the house.
Deputies arrived on scene and observed the man walking around the house with a rifle. “It was a little crazy,” Bufton said.
After a short while, the man put away his firearm and exited the home, Bufton said. He got into his Ford Explorer and started to drive toward a deputy. SWAT members were able to swarm him and take him into custody around 6:30 p.m.
Bufton said he’s puzzled at what the man was trying to accomplish when he got into his car.
“What his intent was, I don’t know,” he said. “He didn’t have the weapons in the vehicle, so that was a good thing.”
Deputies believe the man had been drinking before the incident took place, Bufton said.
The man was booked into Utah County Jail for investigation of DUI and possession of a weapon while intoxicated. He posted the $1,900 bail and was released just before 10 p.m.
This is the third time in a month SWAT teams in Utah County have been deployed. On Sept. 20, a team responded to an incident in Springville where witnesses heard a fight between a man and his girlfriend. The woman was able to leave and SWAT tried to contact the man for three hours. They later entered the apartment and found him dead.
Earlier this month, the Orem-Provo-BYU Metro SWAT team engaged in a four-hour stand off with five people holed up in an apartment at 1127 W. 675 North in Orem. Police suspected some of the people inside were involved in a violent home invasion robbery that left the occupants battered and beaten. The standoff ended when those individuals surrendered themselves to officers.
Copyright 2008 Deseret Morning News