San Jose standoff ends in surrender to police
SAN JOSE >> A man hit his landlord with a stolen truck in a money dispute Friday afternoon, touching off a lengthy police standoff near Willow Glen that forced a nearby school lockdown before he was eventually arrested, according to San Jose police.
Late Friday, 26-year-old San Jose resident Stephen Maciel was found by SWAT officers holed up in a home on Marsha Way, where he was taken into custody with- out a struggle, Lt. Mike Sullivan said.
The episode began with a 911 call about 12:20 p.m. reporting gunshots at South Willard Avenue and Scott Street, about a half-mile northeast of San Jose City College, police said.
Responding officers found a seriously injured man, who told them he got into an argument with his new tenant over money.
“It escalated to the point where he rammed a fence the victim was on other side of,” Sullivan said. “That knocked him back and caused a severe leg injury.”
The white pickup truck sped off, but about 20 minutes later it was spotted about 4 miles south on Marsha Way when police dispatchers got reports of the truck — which had a motorcycle in the back — being driven by a shirtless man covered in blood.
That 911 call was made by residents who had encountered the man and told them he had been shot. Residents who helped the man bandage a wound on his hand also noticed that the truck was riddled with bullets and had shell casings inside, Sullivan said. The truck was also reported stolen.
Sullivan credited police dispatchers with quickly connecting that report with the one several miles away, allowing police to focus their officers on the second location and have an accurate picture of what they were dealing with.
“Dispatch did a great job piecing it together for us,” Sullivan said, adding that the dispatchers’ work “made it safer for us and the community. We went from looking for a victim to looking for a dangerous felon.”
The freshly bandaged man reportedly ran off upon seeing arriving police officers, touching off a manhunt and standoff that would last several hours.
Administrators at Schallenberger Elementary School, which is the southern terminus of Marsha Way, were told to “shelter in place” until staff arranged to release students to parents on the back side of the school along Avalon Drive, safely away from the police search.
Maciel was spotted hiding in a garage on Marsha Way, prompting police to evacuate neighboring homes as a precaution. Police, now joined by a MERGE unit — the San Jose Police Department’s equivalent of SWAT — pinpointed Maciel to a specific home on the street and proceeded to try to contact him.
Police initially tossed flash-bang grenades in an effort to flush out the suspect, but Maciel did not emerge. A police robot usually reserved for handling explosives was also used to search the garage, but there was no trace of the man there, Sullivan said.
“Eventually they had to do a ‘slow search’ of the house,” Sullivan said, referring to a methodical room-by-room canvass of the structure. “Sometime after 10 p.m., they found him inside.”
Sullivan said Maciel did not resist officers when he was arrested, and he credited the steady work of patrol and special-operations officers for ensuring a peaceful resolution. What remains unclear and under investigation is how exactly Maciel suffered his hand injury, and who fired the gunshots that spurred the original 911 call. Sullivan said no gun was immediately found in connection to the case.
Maciel was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, possessing a stolen vehicle, and delaying or obstructing police officers. He was also wanted on a warrant for a fraud-related offense and is being held without bail.