By Tad Vezner and Mara H. Gottfried
Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Wearing an armored vest, a St. Paul man hugged and kissed the woman he lived with before engaging in an hourlong police standoff that ended with him dying in a hail of gunfire Monday afternoon.
The man, who witnesses said was screaming and waving an assault rifle before police arrived, was not immediately identified. Neighbors said he and the woman had moved in a little more than a week ago.
The standoff drew a large police response, including negotiators and a SWAT team, to the East Side home at 411 White Bear Ave.
“We did everything we could,” Sgt. Paul Paulos, a police spokesman, said shortly after announcing the man had died at the scene in an “exchange of gunfire” with police.
Police later said the man had not shot at them, but at an evening news conference, Paulos said it was not clear whether the man had fired and that the question was being investigated.
A man who lives in the area, and asked to be identified only as A.R., said he saw the events unfold from his window. He witnessed the woman hug and kiss the man goodbye before leaving on foot, and then saw the man waving what appeared to be an assault-style rifle after she was gone.
Police were called to the area about 3:20 p.m. Monday and “officers encountered a very dangerous situation,” Paulos said.
A neighbor stopped a responding officer, asking if he was looking for the man with the gun and adding that the man was wearing an armored vest.
He pointed down the alley behind 411 White Bear Ave., and the officer saw the man with the vest and gun and radioed the information to other officers, Paulos said.
One neighbor, who asked that his name not be used, said he saw the man “yelling incoherently” for 10 minutes before police arrived.
When the first officer arrived, A.R. said he saw the man put the rifle just inside the house’s back door and return outside, where he continued to talk with police for about an hour.
Neighbors heard the man yelling that he hated police; "(Expletive) America"; that police were going to shoot him, and he them. One neighbor reported hearing the man yell, “I know you’re going to shoot my dog,” a Rottweiler that neighbors sometimes saw the man and woman walking.
A.R. also heard the man on the phone with someone he referred to as his mother, whom he called several times during the standoff. The man told the person on the other end of the phone,
“The cops are going to kill me,” according to A.R.
Later, A.R. heard police officers talking to each other, saying that if the man made a move to go back in the house, they should, “Light his ass up.”
When the man turned to go inside, officers shot him several times with non-lethal beanbag projectiles, A.R. said. The man stumbled inside, and A.R. said he heard several shots come from inside the house. Police then fired numerous shots into the house, the neighbor said.
No officers were injured in the shooting about 4:20 p.m. Four officers involved in the incident were placed on paid administrative leave, which is policy with fatal shootings.
Police didn’t immediately name the man; they described him as an adult white male and said he died at the scene. Neighbors estimated he was in his 30s or 40s. Police said the woman who lived at the house and the dog were accounted for and uninjured.
Neighbor Sherri G., who asked that her last name not be used, said her son had just met the couple walking their dog Monday morning, and said they seemed fine.
At midafternoon Monday, Sherri G. was scrapbooking when she was startled to see police outside, and heard the man uttering vulgarities and yelling threats, including, “I’m going to kill you.”
While the standoff was underway, officers asked people to leave nearby homes for their safety, and others gathered down the street to watch. When gunshots rang out, some said they ducked and others said they ran.
Geno Lenzi lives in the area, heard the shots, and saw a woman running down the street with her dog and crying. “She was scared out of her mind,” he said. He worried that school buses were dropping off children in the area at the same time, and warned a neighbor whose two children were coming home.
The St. Paul Public Schools’ transportation department had heard White Bear Avenue was shut down and diverted buses to get to bus stops.
“They didn’t immediately know why White Bear was shut down, so there wouldn’t have been a reason to not let kids off of the bus at their normal stops,” said Toya Stewart Downey, a spokeswoman for the school district, in an email. “If there was a known risk to students, the buses would have been diverted to a safe location.”
Ari Owens was visiting her aunt across the street and, when police told them to leave, she took her 2-year-old to the Subway restaurant on the corner. After a while, the shots started and “we all just got down on the floor and ... the whole parking lot was full of people and we all just ducked down on the side of the building, in front of cars, everything,” Owens said. “It was just really crazy.”
The house at 411 White Bear was listed Monday on the city’s vacant building list, but Sherri G. said she had met a real estate agent a couple of months ago who told her he was going to buy the house. He also told her he planned to have someone he knew move in and watch the place.
Copyright 2015 the Pioneer Press