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A more than two-hour standoff between police and a man who had reportedly holed up in a downtown halfway house apartment with a gun ended peacefully Friday afternoon.
Police carried 52-year-old Stewart Eugene Myers, who was awake but unresponsive, from the apartment after he failed to respond to repeated loudspeaker commands to leave. They found only a realistic-looking BB gun in the apartment, located at 1756 Willamette St.
Myers was cited for second-degree trespassing and transported to Sacred Heart Medical Center.
Streets within a several-block radius of the apartment were closed for nearly two hours Friday during the standoff, and many passersby stopped to watch police activity.
Myers, a former resident of the Sponsors halfway house for recently released male prisoners, had been staying with a client at Sponsors Thursday night. The client left for work Friday morning and came back around 1 p.m. to find Myers intoxicated and locked in the apartment, Sponsors Director Ron Chase said.
The client notified a Sponsors employee, who saw what appeared to be a semi-automatic handgun and called the police, Chase said.
Police evacuated the building and closed part of Willamette Street as a precaution. The adjacent Texaco gas station and nearby U.S. Bank and Blockbuster video locations closed temporarily as well.
Police drove an armored vehicle to an alley behind the apartment building and commanded Myers to leave with his hands in the air.
“There’s no way you can be sleeping through all this,” an officer said. “Let’s get this resolved. A lot of people are worried about you.”
Just before 3 p.m., police fired rubber bullets through one of the apartment’s windows, shattering the glass.
Despite repeated commands to leave the apartment, there was no response from Myers.
“Come to the front door,” the officer said. “Your hands need to be up, and your hands need to be empty. You need to do it now.”
When Myers still failed to respond, an officer pulled the blinds from the apartment window and saw the gun on the floor and Myers lying nearby, officer Jasen Johns said.
Police entered the apartment, where they found Myers conscious but extremely intoxicated, Johns said. He was unresponsive and covered in feces.
Paramedics attended to Myers, who softly complained that he was cold as he lay wearing only boxer shorts on the sidewalk outside the ground-floor apartment.
“We’re going to get you warmed up, but you have to cooperate with us,” a medic said. “Why do you have poop all over you?”
Myers did not respond to questions about what he had taken to become intoxicated, but police carried a pill case from the apartment, and Chase said empty vodka bottles were inside.
Johns said that when police looked in the apartment windows and saw the BB gun, they didn’t yet know that Myers was incoherent, but knew they had to go in.
Johns said he did not know Myers’ criminal history.
Chase said he hadn’t seen a similar incident in the 20 years he has worked for Sponsors.
Sponsors residents are not allowed to have alcohol, and most are not allowed to have overnight guests, Chase said. The client who allowed Myers to stay is allowed to have guests because he assists the staff.
Chase said Sponsors will probably pick up the cost of damages to the apartment.
“I think the public has spent enough money on this,” he said. “We’ll fix the window.”
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