Anyone ever covered a standoff?

Not sure what you mean Hondo.

He lived on the West side, so he probably is an Odessa High fan.

 

Covered one in my old neighborhood. I'll never forget it.

It was 10 years ago. I had just finished reading "Grover's Resting Places" for the 392nd time to my then 2 1/2-year-old son when the phone rang. It was my neighbor from across the street. He went to the store and couldn't get back into my housing tract because they sealed it off. So he wanted us to watch his wife and baby son.

Two blocks away, some guy holed himself in his house with a small arsenal. His wife had just left him and taken their daughter and he decided this was going to be his last stand.

Once I got my son to sleep, I threw on a T-shirt and a pair of flip-flops, grabbed one of the paper's three cellphones (which I fortunately had) and headed over to the scene to see what I could get.

I got as close as a block away. I could barely see the house at the end of the street, right where it curves. The sheriff wouldn't let me go any further because the SWAT team had the place surrounded. But at least I was that close; our paper had a reporter who couldn't get into the tract.

I busied myself interviewing evacuees. The deputies had evacuated every house around and across the street from this one. So I had plenty of people to talk to, along with the deputy who was keeping everyone away.

I called in information to our desk, then passed the phone around to several evacuees. Got all kinds of good stuff. Even after deadline passed, I felt obligated to stick around and see how this played out.

It played out very violently. A little before 2 a.m., the SWAT team went in. I heard a fusillade of gunshots, a flash grenade, more gunshots, then silence.

The SWAT team had finished the job this guy apparently wanted finished.

A sidebar... Two months later, I get a flier in the mail at work addressed to me. It was from this local spa shop, which was sponsoring a benefit golf tournament to honor this guy and raise money for, well, I don't know what for. His dad owned the spa shop and wanted me to run this in my golf column.

I nearly vomited.