Gunman surrenders at San Diego complex; no injuries reported

– San Diego police were expecting to spend up to 24 hours going over a “very complicated” crime scene in Bankers Hill Thursday, painstakingly trying to track every bullet fired during Wednesday’s five-hour standoff, a police official said.

The Federal Aviation Administration halted incoming flights for several hours as a precaution because planes swoop low near the apartment complex before landing.

No one has been reported as injured.

Before the SWAT team was called in, police officers had responded to an emergency call from a woman who called to report that her ex-boyfriend had gotten into her apartment, according to San Diego Police Department Chief Shelley Zimmerman. Departing flights were not affected because they take off in another direction, away from the apartment complex. After Colbert fired through a door in the fifth floor apartment, police backed off and established a cordon around the area, shutting down traffic and advising locals to shelter in place.

San Diego police respond to an active shooter in the Bankers Hill neighborhood on November 4, 2015.

Crisis negotiators were able to establish an “open dialogue” with the suspect, who nonetheless continued refusing to surrender, even after officers fired tear-gas grenades into his apartment.

The shots came “within inches” of striking the officers approaching the man’s rooftop apartment, he said. Local schools were placed on lockdown.

A man who lives next to the San Diego apartment where a gunman was holed up says he heard a bang and then spotted a hole in the stucco wall between the two apartments.

For about 40 minutes, he cowered in his bathtub, talking to friends on his cellphone.

“It’s terrifying. Heart’s pounding”, he said.

Neu didn’t know the suspect but said the two exchanged greetings in passing.

“We began processing the scene last night but have not made it inside where the suspect was located yet”, Hastings said Thursday.

The Airport lifted the hold soon after the incident was over. Carstensen said his wife was at the airport at the time. “I told my roommate we needed to leave”, witness Josh Hauptman said.