About 3:40 p.m., law enforcement attempting to stop a vehicle with a man holding a firearm to his head and threatening to shoot himself closed down U.S. Highway 101 between mile markers 14 and 22 in Del Norte County north of Last Chance Grade, according to information over the scanner.
Officers successfully laid down spike strips and punctured the man’s tires. According to a post on the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office Facebook at 5:30 p.m., “Due to the amount of traffic, the closure has been extended to Hwy 101 and Humboldt Rd in Crescent City. Please continue to avoid the area, there is no ETA for re-opening at this time.”
UPDATE 8:53 p.m.: About 7:50 p.m., the Crescent City CHP posted on their Facebook, “We are currently negotiating with an armed subject for a peaceful resolution. At this time there is not estimated time for opening and no detour available around this location. We will update as soon as the highway is reopened. Thank you for your patience and please avoid this area.”
UPDATE: 9:30 a.m.: The situation was resolved peacefully after a negotiating team from pelican Bay State Prison was brought in defuse the situation. The man surrendered safely around 2:30 a.m. and the highway re-opened about an hour later.
This article appears in Fear to Anger to Rage.
Understandable there is a person’s life at stake. At the same time, others have been waiting 12+ hours to get home. The police, who are trained and paid to do a job, should have a better solution then “hundreds of people sit and wait”. Clear the highway! Or let people pass at their own risk.
I organized the stuck people to pull themselves out of the one lane construction zone so we could get all of the northbound traffic turned around to get out of there in the southbound direction. It took us a few hours but we eventually got those who wanted to get out of there actually out of there. We had to double stack all the cars and tell the same story 200 times but it was worth it because we got to sleep in a Ramada hotel bed instead of in the car on the highway.
^Whoever disliked the comment are TOTAL DODOS!