by Carl Baker on 2014-08-27
An all-night standoff with a suicidal man who locked himself in his vehicle in a gym parking lot Wednesday afternoon ended Thursday morning, Aug. 21, when the man fatally shot himself.
Police crisis negotiators spent more than 17 hours talking to the 50-year-old man by phone as he sat locked in his vehicle with a gun in the parking lot of LA Fitness at 1035 Parkford Drive. Paramedics stood by ready to provide treatment. Shortly before 7:30 a.m. a shot was fired in the vehicle. Police approached the vehicle and found the man critically injured.
Redlands Firefighter Paramedics treated the man on scene and in the AMR ambulance as he was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
During the standoff, which began about 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 20, police closed the nearby Ford Street off-ramp from Interstate 10 as well as Parkford Drive. LA Fitness was placed on lockdown for about three hours. Staff and patrons were eventually evacuated through a back door late in the afternoon. A service station on the corner of Ford and Parkford was closed, and residents of a nearby apartment complex were also kept out of their apartments until late Wednesday night.
No other injuries were reported from the incident. The identity of the man is being withheld pending a coroner’s report and notification of his family.