WOODLAND HILLS—On Tuesday, July 28, a landlord, armed with a Molotov cocktail and a crossbow, barricaded himself in a home on 22500 block of Criswell Street.
According to reports, the landlord argued with his tenant, pulled out a crossbow and barricaded himself inside the West Hills home. The landlord was also apparently carrying a Molotov cocktail, which is a bottle filled with flammable liquid and a fuse. Reports indicate that the landlord may have been making Molotov cocktails in his garage earlier in the day.
Authorities reported to the home shortly after 5 p.m. Police evacuated residents from the surrounding homes while the standoff took place. A SWAT team and bomb squad were also called to the scene to deal with the possibility of fire or combustion due to the Molotov cocktails. It was a tense situation, according to Lieutenant John Jena of the Los Angeles Police Department.
“The suspect said that he had a gun, that he would not be taken alive,” Jena told ABC7. “He said he had a crossbow. They saw a crossbow through a window. The victims told them he had made some Molotov cocktails in the garage over the last 24 hours.”
The suspect remained barricaded in the home for five hours, during which he threatened the officers on the scene and refused to cooperate with negotiators. Negotiators even contacted the landlord’s relatives in an attempt to get him to stand down. “Hopefully he will come out,” Officer Mike Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Media Relations Section said during the incident.
Officers fired tear gas into the home and the landlord surrendered. He was taken into custody around 10 p.m. There were no reports of any injuries during the incident.
