By John Valenti and Jennifer Smith, Staff writers
Staff writers Christine Armario and Zachary R. Dowdy contributed to this story.
Newsday
Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
After an 11-hour standoff yesterday, police from several agencies subdued a Wading River man with “psychiatric issues” who had barricaded himself in his home yesterday and fired a shot at officers who tried to arrest him on a felony warrant, police said.
Elite officers from the Suffolk Police Department’s Emergency Services team and other agencies raided the Barnes Road home of Wade Booth just before 7 p.m. It was a drive to resolve the standoff after telephone negotiations throughout the day failed to coax Booth, who was alone, to surrender, police said.
The raid came after police had fired dozens of rounds of a pepper-spray-like substance into Booth’s home. Police noted that Booth has a history of resisting and attacking police officers.
“The officers effected an entry,” said Kenneth Rau, chief of Suffolk’s detectives. “He was armed.”
Police evacuated neighbors and blocked off the street all day. Helicopters hovered over the scene for hours.
One neighbor, Ryan Singlemann, 18, said a Suffolk County police officer knocked on his door at 8:20 a.m. and told him: “We have a major emergency down the road. We need to evacuate all houses.”
Rau said Booth was taken to the Seventh Precinct in Yaphank for booking but did not list the charges he faces. Rau added that no one was injured during the raid. Other agencies involved included the Suffolk Sheriff’s Department, the Probation Department, and all deputized members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Apprehension Task Force.
The standoff began at about 8 a.m. when a seven-member team arrived at Booth’s home to serve an arrest warrant. When three officers - a deputy sheriff investigator, a Suffolk police detective and a U.S. marshal - approached the home, Booth fired through a window at them, police said. The detective was hit in the face with flying glass, police said, sustaining “minor injuries.”
Officials said that Booth had been yelling out the windows, “Get the Ninjas out of here!” Previously, sources said Booth was yelling “Star Wars” movie references.
Some neighbors, though, said Booth had been calling out to police for help as they yelled at him to come out of the house with his hands up, and as they fired the pepper-spray-like substance into the home.
Police said Booth was involved in at least two domestic dispute incidents with his father - one in 2004, one in 2003. The dispositions of those cases is unknown.
A sheriff’s department spokesman said Rudolph Booth, Wade’s father, had his pistol license revoked on April 2, 2004, and was forced to surrender a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber pistol because of those domestic problems.