Dayton man charged day after SWAT standoff
A Dayton man faces charges a day after a nearly 15-hour standoff with Springfield police and SWAT that started early Monday.
The man — identified as Robert Woodruff, 49, of Dayton — was taken into custody about 5:40 p.m.
He was charged with having weapons under disability, aggravated menacing, domestic violence, assault, abduction and child endangering. As of Tuesday, he was listed as an inmate of Clark County Jail.
Springfield police received a call around 3 a.m. Monday from a woman saying that a man had been holding her daughter captive at a house in the 300 block of Fair Street, according to an incident report.
A responding officer knocked on the door but didn’t get an answer. As the officer was about to leave, a woman walked around the side of the house and asked for help, the report stated. She had blood on her nightgown and “visible lacerations” on her face.
The woman told police that Woodruff “threatened to kill her and himself ” and “had a gun with an extended clip,” according to the incident report. The officer could see Woodruff pacing back and forth by a window in the house.
The woman also told police that her grandson was inside the house, according to the incident report.
The boy had been in the house since police arrived, said Dorah Harris, the boy’s great-grandmother. She said that the man, later identified as Woodruff, had held her daughter and great-grandson in the house.
Harris said that her daughter was able to escape but was not able to get the young boy, who was allowed to come out of the house alone shortly before 1 p.m.
A bond hearing for Woodruff is scheduled for Thursday in Clark County Municipal Court, according to court records.
Throughout the day, Springfield police officers, including
SWAT members, were communicating with the man holed up in the house using a loudspeaker on their vehicles, phones and a robot they were able to send in earlier that day. Police also fired teargas into an open door in the house.
The intersection of South Lowry Avenue and Fair Street was blocked and the house surrounded for several hours. Ohio Edison was contacted Monday afternoon to cut power to the house, where service was restored later that day.