Standoff in Sacramento!@

[Tobra]

Sorry, this is sort of long, clipped from local fishrap, cliff notes-Cousin of crazy crook from Concord has kid kidnapped, captive in apartment. Several day standoff shots fired by both sides.

Police SWAT team officers run through an area where an armed and barricaded robbery suspect could fire on them at the Arden Towne Apartments. Anthony Alvarez, 26, seized a cousin's 16-month-old son Wednesday morning, authorities said.

Timothy Earnest rests Thursday at a temporary shelter at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd with his daughters Dominique, 10, and Jazmine, 6 months. They were evacuated Wednesday from their apartment in the Arden Town complex where an armed robbery suspect was holding a 16-month-old relative hostage.

Timeline of the Arden Standoff
How the standoff has unfolded at the Arden Towne Apartments. Times are approximate:

JUNE 4

7:30 p.m. – Concord police pull Anthony Alvarez over in a traffic stop; he's suspected in three recent armed bank robberies. Alvarez runs from police and reportedly fires a weapon at them as he escapes.

WEDNESDAY

11:30 a.m. – Concord police, backed by Sacramento sheriff's deputies and FBI agents, enter the Arden Towne Apartments to try to arrest Alvarez.

Shortly after 11:30 a.m. – Alvarez spots the officers, grabs a 16-month-old from a relative's arms and barricades himself in the apartment. Officers are able to rescue a second child, 4, through a window. Alvarez and the toddler are the only remaining occupants of the apartment.

11:45 a.m. – About 100 to 125 tenants of the apartment complex are evacuated.

• Deputies close Arden Way between Bell Street and Fulton Avenue.

Between noon and 8 p.m. – Negotiators talk sporadically with Alvarez, who is uncooperative but not angry and makes no demands. He also talks with family members, who ask him to surrender.

• Residents are offered shelter at a nearby church. Some from the opposite side of the complex are allowed back into their apartments.

6 p.m. – Alvarez tells a family member by phone that he just fed the toddler.

9 p.m. – Sheriff's deputies employ a flash-bang grenade to determine Alvarez's location in the apartment. They hear the child in the background.

10:45 p.m. – Sheriff's deputies attempt to break a bedroom window and remove blinds blocking their view when Alvarez begins firing at them. They fire back. No deputies are hurt; they don't believe they hit Alvarez.

11 p.m. – Deputies use a robot to finish breaking windows and tearing down blinds.

THURSDAY

2 a.m., 4 a.m. – Deputies and Alvarez exchange fire.

9 a.m. – A SWAT officer fires one shot at Alvarez as he passes in front of an open window in attempt to end the 22-hour standoff. Alvarez does not appear to be hit. Officers also report seeing Alvarez carrying food, which they think he is feeding to the child.

1:10 p.m. – A woman is arrested after climbing onto a roof in the apartment complex. She tells California Highway Patrol officers that she wanted to "save the baby" and read a poem to him.

1:30 p.m. – Alvarez holds the boy up to the window for officers to see. The child appears unharmed.

2:30 p.m. – Alvarez tells his mother over the phone that he has a gunshot wound to his arm and some sort of head injury.

4:15 p.m. – Police SWAT members, relieved by sheriff's SWAT, report that Alvarez fired at the armored vehicle they worked in.

5:30 p.m. – Alvarez covers broken windows with paper, blocking officers' view inside.
continued

[Tobra]

Sacto 9 - 1 - 1: Sacramento sheriff: Suspect takes boy hostage in Arden Way apartment
The rest of it

Robbery suspect holds 16-month-old for a second night

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg, Kim Minugh and Chelsea Phua
Published: Friday, Jun. 11, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Friday, Jun. 11, 2010 - 8:11 am
For endless hours Wednesday, Thursday and early Friday, a young Sacramento couple waited for word about their 16-month-old son, held in their ruined apartment by a cousin described as schizophrenic and bipolar.

Through two long days and well into a second night, a community held its breath. Traffic was routed around a busy thoroughfare. Shops and restaurants closed. Evacuated apartment tenants huddled in parking lots or scrambled for temporary housing.

No one knew how it would end. Not the parents of little Michael Pittman Jr., with his thatch of dark hair. Not relatives of Anthony Alvarez, who even in a mug shot seemed to have a soft half-smile.

Police say Alvarez grabbed his cousin's son late Wednesday morning and fled into what had been the young family's haven – Apartment 29 in the aging Arden Towne Apartments. Officers had been trying to arrest Alvarez in connection with three robberies and for allegedly shooting at an officer in the Bay Area.

Since then, life has turned upside down along a faded stretch of Arden Way.

There were the small things. A dog trapped behind police lines, whose owner couldn't bring her food or water. Graduation parties in limbo at a popular ice cream parlor.

And there were the terrifyingly large ones: SWAT teams who had fired into the apartment. A man inside, possibly mentally ill and off his medications, who fired out. And sometimes, in his arms, a little boy.

Late Thursday and early Friday, Alvarez fired shots in the apartment. At 10:15 p.m. Thursday, he fired one shot. After throwing out a cell phone given to him earlier by Sacramento County sheriff's officials, he fired two shots at 12:26 a.m. Friday.

Alvarez's sister, Tessa, gasped after hearing the two Friday shots. She is waiting across the street from the apartment complex. At 12:36 a.m., he fired one shot, then another a few minutes later.

Officials said they could still hear the boy in the apartment after the gunshots. No one was injured.

The boy's parents, Alexis and Michael Pittman, met while they were still in high school in Daly City, just south of San Francisco, and married six years ago, according to his mother, Ruby Lockhart. They have two sons, Michael Jr., and his older brother Nathan, 4, who officers pulled out of a rear apartment window Wednesday moments after Alvarez ducked inside to hide.

The family moved to Sacramento about two years ago, Lockhart said. Both parents have been attending American River College.

Thursday night, Alexis Pittman posted a note to friends and well-wishers on her Facebook page: "Just wanted everybody to know that I am safe worried about my son, I love him and thank you everyone for your prayers. Let's hope they bring Michael home safe!! I love you babylove."

Later she posted: "31 hours later and i'm doin much better I was told they seen him!!! Lifted a huge weight off my heart I cried until 7 am."

Throughout the ordeal, the Pittman family and many of Alvarez's relatives stayed in close contact with authorities.

The wait outside the first- floor apartment stretched so long that SWAT teams traded off, with a city unit spelling a county sheriff's team, then rotating duties back to sheriff's deputies.

Officers tried what they could to safely dislodge Alvarez – phone calls; "flash-bang" devices thrown outside the apartment to disorient with a burst of light and sound; a blast of water from a fire hose to break apartment windows; a robot that trundled up and ripped out window coverings. They had readied a long range hailing and acoustic device, which can emit a low-pitched sound to distract a suspect.

At one point, 55 sheriff's deputies surrounded the area, watching from behind rifle sights, maintaining the scene perimeter or manning the command post. That didn't include Sacramento police, Folsom police, the California Highway Patrol, firefighters or paramedics.

Everything they did focused on one goal – bringing the little boy out safely.

Overnight Wednesday, deputies endured a fevered pace, exchanging gunfire with Alvarez on three occasions. They say that he first shot at police when officers walked up to the windows to try to break glass and remove blinds. They retreated and later sent the robot in to do the job.

By noon Thursday, the chaos settled into a steady, enduring effort to win Alvarez's trust and coax him out.

The day hung on a glimpse of movement here, a few words on the telephone there.

Traditional methods employed during standoffs – like firing flash-bang grenades into the apartment or using chemical irritants like pepper balls – were too risky with a 16-month-old involved.

"The presence of the baby is dictating our actions," said sheriff's Sgt. Tim Curran.

Without Michael Jr., Curran added, the standoff likely would have been over on Wednesday.

Negotiators spoke to Alvarez steadily and calmly through a megaphone when he wouldn't answer, or abruptly ended, their phone calls. Repeatedly, they asked him to pick up the phone or walk outside to end the drama at last.

Only occasionally did exhaustion or desperation seek into their voices: At one point, a negotiator pleaded, "Come out. … I'm tired of doing this."

The tension stretched at the fabric of extended families.

Tessa Alvarez drove in from San Francisco late Wednesday night, hoping to help negotiators reach out to her brother. She said he was both schizophrenic and bipolar and had not been taking his medications for about a month.

"He's a good guy. He's not a killer. He's just a little lost," she said. Thursday was his 26th birthday.

Alvarez had been living in transitional housing in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, trying with little luck to find work, she said. When he spent time with her and her family, he was "really good" with her son, Tessa Alvarez added.

She and other relatives tried to stay in touch with Alvarez and with authorities.

"He wants to surrender but doesn't trust the police," she said Thursday evening. "He said he'll come out if his girlfriend walks him out."

Alvarez's mother also spoke with her son, according to police, and reported back to them that he said he had a gunshot wound in one arm, and a head injury.

On Wednesday, acting on information that Alvarez might be at the Arden Towne Apartments, Sacramento County sheriff's deputies, Concord police officers and the FBI attempted to arrest him there. He bolted with his cousin, beginning the long ordeal.

The standoff uprooted residents of the complex's other 81 apartments, which are all one or two bedrooms renting for $650 to $825 a month, said owner Mike Sanwal.

Dennis DuBois, 56, who lives in the complex and helps maintain it, tried for hours to get some water to his dog, Mamas, an affectionate pit bull that police told him to leave behind.

"I don't know how long a dog can go without water," he said anxiously, before a deputy carried the dog out to him Thursday evening.

DuBois and his son have been sleeping in his son's Toyota Corolla, with a couple of ponchos for warmth.

About two dozen people took up residency at the nearby Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, in a carpeted A-frame gymnasium with cots, blankets and food.

One of them was Amada Alonso, 29, there with her husband and their three daughters, ages 3, 5 and 7.

"I took diapers and that was it – no ID, money or anything," she said.

Businesses, too, were disrupted. About five blocks were closed to traffic on what is usually a busy corridor, traveled by 30,000 cars daily, dotted with fast food restaurants and taquerias, home furnishing stores, florists and smaller shops. Many businesses closed.

Leatherby's ice cream parlor considered calling off post-graduation parties.

"Graduation's a big thing," said manager Samantha Cox. "We have first-time customers come in, year-end events at the schools. We're finally getting warm days. If this goes on, it will definitely hurt."

Meanwhile, police set up a command post at an Aaron Brothers' Art and Framing store. Inside, officers in vests, with cell phones held to their ears, paced beside the counter where customers bring art to be framed.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

[TessaJunior]

I remember this event quite often, sad story for all events. I think of my brother often he was honestly loved.
I feel apologetic, for even going there in the first place.
I did not wish to speak to any reporters, and I was a bit pressured.
The things I confided were off the top of my head and uneducated. Also knew nothing of his current interests at the time in 2010.
In regards to mental illness I had no experience in the matter and subject *I only found out what mental illness was a month ago, at the time.* 2010.
I hope my abruptness did not alter the outcome in this case.