SWAT Team Surrounds House Seeking Murder Suspect
There was curiosity and even a little fear Thursday in the neighborhood around Gina Drive in southeast Colorado Springs, when the police SWAT team closed off streets and surrounded a house while searching for a murder suspect.
“You heard them get on the bullhorn and ask whoever was inside to come out or answer the phone,” said Aaron St. Germain, a neighbor across the street. “They did that two or three times.”
Police believed a man, suspected of killing one person and seriously wounding another during an apparent robbery an the Auto Zone store Wednesday night, was in a house at 2545 Gina Drive. However, after deploying a robot and firing either teargas or a “flash-bang” noise-making device, officers found no one inside.
It’s unclear whether the suspect was ever in the house, or if he was there and fled to escape police. A neighbor across the street said he believed the suspect was a man who used to live in the house as a roommate, and that the house’s owner was at work during the SWAT situation.
“I didn’t really know him,” said St. Germain, who said he has lived in the neighborhood since January. “There was one other time when we saw the police team over there doing something. But I never really knew what they were doing. They wouldn’t tell us.”
Police at the scene revealed little information about what the SWAT team was doing. Police arrived around 7 a.m. and left three hours later.
St. Germain had a front-row seat to the activity, while two officers armed with sniper rifles took positions in his children’s bedroom.
“(The kids) were wanting to see everything,” said their father. “I kept them in the back of the house. It was a little nerve-wracking, but it was pretty cool to watch. It was like a movie.”
Nicole Kinkemann came out to watch the scene while carrying her year-old daughter.
“I’m just being nosy,” she said. “I’m scared. I’ve got a baby. But I brought her out here with me because she’s safer with me, than somewhere else.”
Firefighters helped police seal off the house later in the afternoon.
