MEXICO – A 60-minute standoff Tuesday morning between police and a Mexico woman armed with a handgun inside her house, ended without incident when a police negotiator talked the woman out without the gun.
The 49-year-old woman was then examined inside her Kimball Avenue home by Med-Care Ambulance medics. The ambulance was sent in after the woman left the gun on a bed and walked out a back door, surrendering to police, Mexico Patrolman Jeff Stoddard said at the scene.
The woman was then taken to Rumford Hospital to be evaluated.
No charges would be filed, Stoddard said, because she didn’t commit a crime.
The standoff began at about 9:30 a.m. when the woman called a crisis center worker, who then alerted police, he said.
“She was despondent and drunk, because her mother had died” three months ago, Mexico Chief Jim Theriault said.
“The initial call was that she had a gun, and was threatening to shoot herself and anybody else,” Stoddard added.
Police would later learn the woman was armed with a loaded .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver.
Stoddard called for mutual-aid from Dixfield police Chief Richard A. Pickett, who is a trained negotiator, Rumford Detectives Lt. George Cayer and Sgt. Daniel Garbarini, and Rumford Patrolman Scott Mills.
Bail Commissioner Bob Grinnell, a former area policeman, also responded. Additionally, Garbarini called in Theriault, who was on vacation.
Using cruisers, Garbarini and Mills blocked off both ends of Kimball Avenue.
“We established a perimeter to try to make people safe,” Garbarini said. No residents were evacuated.
Cayer, armed with a rifle, and wearing a helmet and olive-green clothing, stood against the sidewall of a house across the street from the woman’s two-story house.
Stoddard and Pickett, wearing Kevlar vests, could be seen walking around the white house and near a garage.
They had to wait for the woman to get off the phone with the crisis worker. When she did, Pickett called and began talking to her, Stoddard said.
“An hour passed before he could talk her out of the house, but she came out peacefully, fortunately. This could have been tragic,” he added.
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