A Pasco Sheriff’s Office deputy helped end a standoff with a barricaded and suicidal man yesterday using the chat function of Facebook.
Deputies responded to the call at 1626 Chesapeake Drive in Odessa at about 11:30 a.m. and found the man had barricaded himself inside a shed after an argument with his wife, telling her that he was going to do something to make the cops kill him.
The man was reportedly armed with a .357 handgun. Deputies wanted to contact him but there wasn’t a phone in the shed, however there was a computer.
Cpl. Art Morrison II, a school resource officer and a member of the agency’s hostage negotiating team, decided to use his school resource officer Facebook page to send a friend request to the man, who accepted. The two chatted for a while, but then the man set a mattress on fire and left the shed. That’s when police grabbed him, took him into custody and Baker Acted him.
