10-Hr Gas Station Standoff In Rohnert Park Ends With No Injuries

ROHNERT PARK, CA — A suicidal woman held law enforcement officers at bay for nearly 10 hours Saturday at a Rohnert Park gas station before using flash-bang device to distract her and then immobilize her with a Taser, police said.

No one was injured in the incident that started at 1:45 a.m. Saturday when a Sheriff's deputy stopped two women in a small SUV at a Valero gas station on Commerce Boulevard.

The 45-year-old female driver was arrested on suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia, and taken to jail.

Her passenger was entrusted with the SUV, a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy said.

Deputies returned the 45-year-old woman to her SUV at about 4:25 a.m., and found the SUV passenger still inside the now-locked vehicle, and with a 6-inch knife to her own neck, threatening to harm herself, deputies said.

Several Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies and Rohnert Park police officers, including a trained crisis negotiator, talked to the woman for several hours. At about 8:30 a.m., the Sheriff's Negotiation Team was called in.

After approximately 10 hours, including nearly six hours with the negotiation team, the psychologist determined the woman would not give up.

The woman in the SUV was warned several times that she would be removed from the car if she didn't give up, deputies said; given she was in a public place and presented a danger, SWAT team officers at 2:17 p.m. used flash-bang devices to break the car windows and disorient the woman, allowing them to get into the car. The woman was then Tased.

No one was injured, deputies said.

The woman was taken by ambulance to the county's Crisis Stabilization Unit in Santa Rosa, deputies said, and was not arrested.

By Bay City News Service

Photos courtesy Sonoma County Sheriff's Office