BOZEMAN — If you live around the 9th Avenue and Lamme Street area in Bozeman, then you probably had an eventful Tuesday night. The streets were flooded with police cars and SWAT teams in attempts to detain a man who had barricaded himself in a house with a rifle.
“It was a wild night. Not a lot of sleep. A lot of yelling in the background and all that,” says Hannah Cantú.
I spoke with Hannah, who lives down the street from the scene where tire marks are still fresh in the yard from law enforcement.
“I remember we were semi-asleep. Woke up around midnight to probably a flashbang and some major sounds of yelling and evacuation and stuff like that,” Hannah told me.
According to a press release, at around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, witnesses around Lamme observed a man retrieving an AR-style rifle from his vehicle during a heated argument over parking. Concerned neighbors immediately contacted law enforcement but when they arrived, the man had left the area.
Around 9 p.m., police received information that the man, later identified as Seth Ryan Gomez, was back in his residence off 9th and Lamme, barricaded with the rifle.
“When we get information that there’s a weapon involved and we have information to believe somebody may be barricaded inside of a residence? It really then kind of escalates our response,” says Bozeman Police Patrol Captain Hal Richardson.
Richardson arrived on scene around 2 a.m. Wednesday morning. He told me police were able to safely evacuate those in the residence not involved in the standoff and put the surrounding residents in a shelter in place.
“Obviously if there's weapons involved, and with us bringing a special response team in, we just don't want someone to be injured if it did turn violent,” says Richardson.
Gomez was uncompliant and refused to leave. That's when Bozeman Police activated their City-County Joint Special Response Team.
“We just tried to negotiate with them. We used loudspeakers. We used throw phones. We go through a whole bunch of stuff to get them out,” says Richardson.
Eyewitnesses say they also used what sounded like flashbangs. You could also see the windows on the residence were shattered—procedures that kept those in the area up all night long.
“They continued to yell, ‘We know you’re still in the house. Please come out with your arms up and no guns,’ and all that kind of stuff,” says Hannah.
After several hours of failing efforts, Gomez was still barricaded in the residence. Around 5:30 a.m., The Lewis and Clark County and Helena Police SWAT team was called to the scene. The incident was finally resolved around 7 a.m. when officers deployed tear gas.
“The individual was taken into custody peacefully. Nobody got hurt, which is really the ultimate goal. It’s to resolve these peacefully,” says Richardson.
Gomez has been charged with four felony counts of Assault With Weapon.
According to Richardson, the police department doesn’t see these long standoff situations often. But they do have the resources for when they do occur.
And Hannah, who’s lived in the Lamme and 9th area for years, tells me it was impressive to see those resources in action.
“They did a great job of handling it as far as I could tell," she says. "There have been little incidents over the years and stuff like that, but never anything with this heavy of a presence."
