Suspect probably gone before 29-hour siege began

<p>SWAT team members stormed a Guerneville home Wednesday but found the triplex empty.</p><p>The forced entry came 29 hours after law enforcement authorities circled the Mill Street residence and twice sent rounds of tear gas and diversion devices into the structure in attempts to make contact with a man thought to be holed up inside.</p><p>The man, identified by law enforcement officials as Sean Gallon, 30, is suspected of shooting an arrow into a vehicle, piercing the top and causing minor injury to an occupant.</p><p>He remained at large Wednesday night.</p><p>SWAT teams from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department and the Santa Rosa Police Department took part in the response that kept residents away from their homes for more than a day.</p><p>Nearby restaurants also were closed. Rankled owners and managers lost two days of business but did not blame the Sheriff’s Department.</p><p>“It’s been two days of hell,” said Gregory Gajues, manager of the Russian River Resort. “At least it all ended well. Nobody got hurt. The sheriffs took all the precautions they needed too.”</p><p>The standoff began at about 1 p.m. Tuesday when Gallon’s brother told sheriff’s officials that the suspect was barricaded in the three-story home’s refurbished attic.</p><p>SWAT personnel and Gallon’s father made pleas on a megaphone that Gallon leave the house and surrender.</p><p>The SWAT team’s demands became more insistent throughout Wednesday morning, with an officer calling out: “It’s not too late to get ahold of me. Give me a call and let me know that you’re all right.”</p><p>And 15 minutes later, a voice again called: “pick up the phone.”</p><p>“We can get this all squared away,” the SWAT team promised.</p><p>But it is likely that the house had been empty since before authorities arrived, said Lt. Greg Miller of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department.</p><p>On Wednesday afternoon multiple cannisters of tear gas were fired into the home and flashbang grenades were fired. Windows on the third floor were broken, apparently by tear gas cannisters, and officers used the opportunity to toss in telephones for Gallon to use to contact them.</p><p>“Usually there would be some type of reaction, a noise or some sign of movement. But there’s been nothing,” said Capt. Matt McCaffrey after deputies fired diversion devices and tear gas into the triplex.</p><p>“There’s a certain point when we have to make an approach. But right now we’re hunkered down in wait-and-see,” he said about 3 p.m.</p><p>At 5 p.m., SWAT team members went into the house, checking each floor as they made their way to the attic.</p><p>“He’s not here. We have no idea how he got out. He must have left the perimeter before we arrived on scene," Miller said.</p><p>Miller said the search for the suspect will continue. He’s wanted for questioning in the case now classified as assault with a deadly weapon.</p><p>“We don’t have any idea why he did this," Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Raasch said Tuesday evening.</p><p>The arrow hit James McNeil in the back of the head. He suffered a headache and a lump on his head.</p><p>McNeil and a friend had been sitting in a Mazda convertible parked across the street from the Gallon residence for about five minutes when the crossbow arrow hit the car at about 12:30 p.m., Raasch said. The arrow lodged part way through the car’s soft top.</p><p>“I was sitting with my friend in the convertible, and it came through the roof and hit me in the back of the head,” McNeil said. “I looked at my friend and said ‘We’re being attacked. Take off!’”</p><p>Relieved residents gathered at the Russian River Resort bar Wednesday evening as the county armored vehicles rolled away from Guerneville.</p><p>Luis Lowenberg was overjoyed to be reunited with his dog and Vesta Griffith was happy knowing her five-year-old daughter would be able to change her clothes before going to school today.</p><p>Lowenberg, Griffith and others applauded the work of the Sheriff’s Department.</p><p>“I know it’s expensive,” Lowenberg said. “But it’s better than somebody being dead.”</p>