By:Jeff Lipton
A nearly seven-hour siege ended peacefully last Wednesday night after a man armed with a 12-gauge shotgun barricaded himself in his East Atlantic Beach home and threatened to harm himself, according to police.
Police said they managed to talk the man out of the apartment with no shots being fired.
Officials said that the man, identified as Roberto Rodriguez, 40, called 911 shortly after 11 a.m. on Jan. 21, stating that an assault was in progress at his apartment, at 81 Brookline Ave. Before emergency personnel arrived, Rodriguez repeatedly called 911, said detectives, adding that the irrational man made inferences that he was going to hurt himself or possibly had hurt someone else inside his apartment.
When police arrived, Rodriguez would not allow them to enter his basement apartment, barricading himself inside, police said. They reported hearing the man screaming and yelling inside the apartment, and officers who arrived on the scene requested assistance from the Bureau of Special Operations, the Emergency Services Unit, county police hostage negotiators and detectives.
Police evacuated residents from their homes for several blocks as a safety precaution.
The man held police at bay after they received information that he was armed with a rifle or a shotgun and was acting irrationally, officials said. Hostage negotiators eventually persuaded Rodriguez to open the door to his apartment, and he emerged at about 5:30 p.m. No shots were fired and no one was reported injured, police said.
Detective Sergeant John Azzata of the Fourth Squad said he spent a good part of the six-hour standoff on the phone with the man, trying to convince him to come out of the apartment. I-m sure he had some psychological problems, said Azzata. During the time I spoke to him, one minute he was lucid, the next minute he was not. Why he did this was never articulated by him to me.
Initially, some thought that he was holding a hostage, but that was not at all the case, Azzata added, saying that the man never threatened police with the shotgun.
Rodriguez told police officials that he had ingested an unknown substance through his nose from Monday, Jan. 19, through Wednesday, Jan. 21, and he began to hallucinate and became combative, police said.
He was distraught, and apparently he had taken some drugs and threatened to do harm to himself, said Inspector Richard McGuire, commander of the Fourth Precinct, who was also the incident commander.
Police would not reveal why the man was so distraught. After Rodriguez was arrested, police searched his apartment to see if anyone else was inside. Detectives found quantities of cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia, along with an assortment of knives, including switchblades, and a 12-gauge shotgun, authorities said.
Rodriguez was charged with three counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and fourth-degree possession of a dangerous weapon, police said.
When the siege ended, Rodriguez was taken to Long Beach Medical Center for evaluation and medical attention, and then to the Fourth Precinct, where he was charged. He was then taken to the Nassau County Correctional Facility, where he was being held without bail, police said.
Rodriguez told police that he is unemployed and attends APEX Technical School in Manhattan.
The incident shut down Nevada and Ohio avenues in Long Beach, and West Park Avenue between Ohio and Trenton, in addition to Brookline. Residents also said they had difficulty crossing the Atlantic Beach Bridge due to the police activity.
Shutting down the streets is common, Azzata said. We were hoping that he would not do anything drastic.
