TULSA, Okla. — A Tulsa man is behind bars after a stand-off with Tulsa police that lasted nearly 7-hours Wednesday.
Police arrested 46-year-old Peter Anthony Demonte after they say he barricaded himself in his home with a sword and made death threats to his neighbor. Demonte lived in this four-plex apartment building at the Virginia Lee apartments.
Anthony Napir, who lives just down the road, says he saw police cars on his street around 8 a.m. After several hours, he knew it was serious.
“Special ops and snipers and everything’s going on. It’s kinda weird,” Napir said.
Police originally responded to what they believed to be a man suffering a mental health crisis around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. When officers arrived, they learned Demonte had apparently used a Samurai sword to hack through a wall that he shares with his neighbor and began making death threats.
“This went from a response to someone who was possibly suffering a mental health crisis, to somebody we knew that we needed to get into custody because now they posed an immediate threat to the public,” capt. Shane Tuell with Tulsa Police said.
The neighbor called the police and got out safely, that’s when the special operations unit was called.
“We had officers in place around his residence so we could safely take him into custody if he followed our commands. Unfortunately, he did not follow our commands,” Capt. Tuell said.
Police then turned to his family. Demonte’s mother asked him to come out peacefully over the loudspeaker. When that didn’t work, they used tear gas.
“It made his environment very uncomfortable and hard to breathe. It causes no injury to him, no injuries to the officers and it gets a very desired result which is exactly what we had here today,” Captain Tuell said.
Domonte finally came out through the window around 2 p.m. He faces charges of first degree burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and threatening a violent act.
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