Fairfield police: Armed man arrested after asking store clerk to call the cops
An armed 40-year-old Sacramento man who told Fairfield police officers he was feeling suicidal was taken into custody Sunday after dispatchers received a 911 call from a store clerk saying the man asked the employee to call the police.
Following an evaluation by responding officers, the unidentified man was placed on a mental health hold and taken to a local hospital.
A spokeswoman for the Fairfield Police Department, Jennifer Brantley, said it was departmental protocol to not identify suspects who are taken into custody for mental health reasons.
Dispatchers received a 911 call at 6:56 p.m. from the clerk of a gas station in the 100 block of Lopes Road, she said.
The clerk said that a man had entered the store and placed a handgun on the counter, advising the clerk to call police. The man then returned the gun to his jacket, according to an account on the department's Facebook page.
The clerk was able to safely leave the store and officers, along with the Crisis Negotiations Team, quickly formed a plan to safely detain the armed man, “who appeared to have sequestered himself in the store's restroom area,” the social media post indicated.
Once it was determined no customers were inside, the department's Bearcat, a rescue vehicle providing an armored barrier between a known armed suspect and the community, was deployed to the scene.
The armored vehicle allowed officers to safely approach the store without exposing them to danger, such as gunfire and permitted them to talk with the man via loudspeaker.
After several attempts at communication, the man briefly exited the restroom area and motioned for officers to enter the store, “before again retreating out of sight,” according to wording the post.
More announcements were made, telling the man to exit unarmed and, after several minutes, he appeared again, throwing a firearm toward the store's front doors. Shortly afterward, the man himself walked out of the store and was taken into custody.