How often do police standoffs happen at your job?

[RoJoHen]

Because we had one in our frickin' lobby this afternoon!

Okay, so "police standoff" might be a little more dramatic than what actually happened, but still, there was a standoff, and there were police involved. The standoff, however, was between two students at my school. The police only arrived at the end to break it up.

There was still a lot of yelling and death threats and possibly a concealed weaponed (it was never removed from concealment, so it may have just been the extra part of the one guy's belt).

It definitely made my otherwise boring day a lot more interesting for about 45 minutes. Those students have now been kicked out. One of them has apparently been to prison three times already, and we're not convinced that he isn't going to come back tonight and vandalize the place.

Yay, crime!

 

[Davros]

Not at work but last year my street was shut down by Aurora SWAT. Guys in body armor with assault rifles all over the place.

 

[RoJoHen]

Aurora, IL?

 

[Davros]

Aurora, IL?

Colorado, sorry for not being more specific.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, my dad works in Aurora, IL, so I figured I would have heard about this.

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

In my office building, none yet.

Across the street however, a very different story.

 

[auntiehill]

I work at home, so, um. NEVER....and I hope it stays that way.

 

[WillsBabe]

Not had one recently, but they used to be reasonably common in my old job. Sometimes our clients would get aggressive or threatening and we would have to call the police.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I work at home, so only a couple of times a week.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I posted in TNZ about a raid across the street from me a while back:
______________________________________

So I'm sleeping this morning when at about twenty minutes to 6:00 AM around four nondescript black SUVs and four more HBPD police cars pull up to the condo directly across the street from me, and at least 24 ATF agents in full assault gear jump out and blow the hinges off the steel security screen covering the door of the house and toss flash bang grenades inside before breaching the house (other agents entered from the back of the house).

The guy they were after must have barricaded himself in his second floor bedroom with his wife, because an agent outside got on the megaphone and told him and his wife to surrender and to think of their kids, who the agents had already carried out in blankets (the three very young kids were terrified). Eventually they brought them both out unharmed after about five minutes.

From what I could hear from the agents talking outside, this guy was wanted on numerous weapons charges. There didn't appear to be a large cache of guns in the house, though (at least I didn't see anything major being taken out). I've seen him around before and said "hi" because my carport is right next to his and his back gate, and the dude has full tattoo sleeves and the gothic script tat around his neck, so he's probably served some serious time. After the assault was done and the guy and his wife had been taken into custody and driven off, I went to see if my car was okay since it was right next to the rear breach of the gate. It was.

Anyway, so a little bit of excitement this morning. I just feel terrible for those three kids, though, but hopefully if they were in a dangerous situation they'll be able to find some other family for them to live with until (and if) their mom gets out of jail, assuming she wasn't a significant part of it.

Follow-up. Apparently the raid across from my house was merely one part of quite a large operation involving over 500 officers from multiple agencies and departments:

100 arrested in gang, Mexican Mafia crackdown

Published: July 13, 2011 Updated: July 14, 2011 10:18 a.m.
By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – Nearly 100 alleged gang members have been arrested in what law enforcement officials are calling a devastating blow on local gangs and leaders of the notorious Mexican Mafia.

The multiple arrests, which officials said included “soldiers” and the top leaders of the criminal organization, will deal a “staggering and comprehensive blow,” said Andre Birotte, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.

In an action dubbed “Operation Black Flag,” federal and local law enforcement officials raided 42 locations throughout Orange County, Los Angeles and Riverside counties, targeting 99 individuals who have been named in five federal indictments, said Douglas Price, assistant special agent in charge of the criminal division of the Los Angeles FBI office. Authorities also seized weapons, cash and drugs.

The 32-month-long investigation of the suspects included investigators from several local and federal agencies, including the FBI, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa police departments, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the California Department of Corrections.

Also taken into custody were several members of an O.C. gang known to operate in the Westside of Costa Mesa. According one of the indictments unsealed Wednesday, the gang collects taxes on behalf of the Mexican Mafia from those who want to sell narcotics within Costa Mesa.

Known as La Eme, the Mexican Mafia had its beginnings in the California prison system, eventually expanding its influence over local gangs.

 

[ares93]

Well, we've a police raid in school almost every month. Sometimes even PIKET (Swedish SWAT) is involved. As for stand off, we got police patrols every night in our neighborhood. Plenty of standoffs between Police and gangs. Hell, even police again Police...

 

[Holdfast]

Because we had one in our frickin' lobby this afternoon!

First time it happens, they're kind of exciting, it's true. After a few of them, they get less interesting, because they do tend to go on for hours and hours.

I've been involved in several of these now (in a professional capacity, not the target, I hasten to add!) the last one taking place just last week as a matter of fact. Sometimes we have a police escort, and just occasionally, it turns out they're very much needed, and very rarely, the situation escalates beyond what the couple of officers or so with us can contain, and the specialists into play...

The UK has something called Police Primacy that kicks in at this stage. Their bronze-silver-gold command structure for serious incidents then applies, and everything becomes very risk-averse. Lengthy stand-offs/containment/negotiation usually becomes the name of the game. From nowhere, about a dozen police vans and cars appear, cordons are set up and the ARVs (armed response vehicles) arrive with officers suiting up in their black paramilitary-esque body armour (basically, analogous to your SWAT guys).

Frankly, once it get to this stage, I try to extract myself as soon as I can, because they don't really need me any longer, and there's no way I can hasten the resolution of the stand-off. You do get a few good stories out of these incidents though.

 

[Kirby]

Aurora, IL?

Colorado, sorry for not being more specific.

Cool. I work at Parker Rd and Yale in Aurora.

Never had anything happen here, but when I worked in Downtown Denver, we had an oil company in our building, and they would occasionally receive bomb threats. One was credible enough for them to shut the entire building down and send everyone home.
We also had the Timothy McVeagh trial across the street at the Federal Courthouse. Lots of guys with rifles and body armor walking around, Federal Marshalls in the lobby of the building all the time. They even welded the manhole covers shut. That was a crazy time.

 

[auntiehill]

I work at home, so only a couple of times a week.

*note to self: NEVER visit RJ at home*

 

[Finn]

I just remembered. Not really a standoff, but at my old job in Cincinnati, cops showed up to arrest an coworker and she was never seen again. The supervisors were in the dark (the receptionist let them in) and some of the guys enjoyed seeing her getting arrested.

 

[Captain Shaw]

Not at my job, but at one place I worked the whole area was brought to a standstill because the police were looking for two murder suspects, who both had decided to hide in the woods.
One had killed his daughter and the other had kill a man who had been making his life hell for years.
The police got a little excited and got two helicopters out and shut off one main roads, searching every car going that way.

 

[Bisz]

Never.

We have a nice and quiet plant with only 3,000 or so people in it at a time.

 

[Davros]

Aurora, IL?

Colorado, sorry for not being more specific.

Cool. I work at Parker Rd and Yale in Aurora.

I used to work around Quincy and Parker.

 

[Misfit Toy]

I had to call the police at an old job. I was running an inside mini-storage place (a large indoor space divided up into a maze of storerooms), and I came to work one morning to find a trail of blood leading out of the building. I followed the trail back to a storage unit, then called the cops. The guy renting the unit had shot his girlfriend after she stabbed him in the ass. He came to the unit to hide the gun before going to the hospital to get the bleeding stopped. The cops called me an idiot for following the blood trail before calling them. They were right.

 

[doubleohfive]

I have yet to experience anything like this. The closest I think I've ever been was back on September 11, 2001 during the initial hours of the attacks when some moronic dumbass called a bomb threat in at the university admissions office I worked in.