Burglary charge results from SWAT standoff

A 30-year-old man is in the Franklin County jail after an hours-long standoff with the Franklin County SWAT team Sunday morning involving his family.

Trevor Clark, of the New Albany area, was charged with aggravated burglary involving a deadly weapon and booked into the Franklin County jail after police negotiators persuaded him to release two children and their mother, and then surrender himself, police said.

Just before 7 a.m., deputies were called to a house in the 6800 block of Havens Road in Jefferson Township. The caller told dispatchers that Clark was in the driveway with a gun, threatening to kill himself as part of a custody dispute he was having with the caller’s daughter, the sheriff’s office reported.

Clark had forced his way in through the back door while Clark’s girlfriend, her mother and their daughters, ages 4 and 6, hid in an upstairs room, police said. Her father, who called the police, escaped the house, and Clark forced his girlfriend into a separate room, police said. Officers with the Franklin County SWAT team got the girls and their grandmother out after about an hour.

After another 40 minutes of talking to police negotiators, Clark released his girlfriend and then — at 10:10 a.m. — he surrendered himself, said Chief Deputy Jim Gilbert with the sheriff’s office. No one was injured.

Gilbert said he didn’t know what prompted Clark to surrender, but he said that members of Clark’s family had gathered at the scene and Clark was made aware of that.