Suspect surrenders after daylong police standoff at Denny’s eatery

CAMPBELL >> An angry customer who holed up inside a Denny’s restaurant on Friday and held off police for almost 12 hours before surrendering, was identified Saturday as Saunray Winchester, 37. He was being held at the Santa Clara County Jail, according to police.

While trying to coax him out of the restaurant, where he had begun the day with a cup of coffee before threatening an employee, police used a variety of tactics that included trying to call him on the phone, broadcasting orders to come out, and lobbing a flash-bang grenade and a tear-gas-like agent in an attempt to flush him out.

“We’re extremely happy with the end result of this very dangerous situation, that it was able to be resolved safely,” Campbell police Capt. Gary Berg said. “These are very highrisk situations where you have an individual who is armed and refusing to obey commands from the police. We spent a lot of time making sure nothing was rushed and he was given every opportunity to surrender peacefully.”

Campbell police were summoned to the diner at 5:18 a.m., shortly after the suspect reportedly got into an unexplained argument inside the restaurant with a worker contracted to clean the grease trap. The suspect, described as a man in his 20s, followed the worker outside to the parking lot and threw coffee at him before threatening him with a gun, police said. The armed man then went back inside the restaurant and sat down at a booth.

Employees and customers swiftly evacuated the diner and the threatened worker called 911. Police arrived and eventually shut down Bascom Avenue between Campbell Avenue and Dry Creek Road.

Monique Herrera, who lives behind the Denny’s, said she woke up to the sounds of shouting coming from the restaurant parking lot.

“I thought it was people arguing, but when I looked out the window and saw two cop cars with lights pointed in the parking lot,” Herrera said.

Herrera said she left for work at 6:40 a.m., but came back when police asked her two adult children and other nearby residents to evacuate their homes.

Around 4 p.m., police shut off the lights and power inside the Denny’s and lobbed a “chemical agent” device akin to a tear-gas canister, which led to smoke or exhaust visibly billowing from the roof. The chemical, which Berg described as a more powerful incarnation of pepper spray, appears to be what made the suspect finally walk outside.