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UPDATE: Orchards standoff with armed woman ends without serious injury

It lasted 10 hours on NE 76th St. west of state Highway 503

By John Branton
Published: September 20, 2011, 5:00pm

After a 10-hour standoff, SWAT officers took an armed, suicidal young woman into custody in the Five Corners area west of Orchards about 8:35 p.m. Tuesday.

No one was reported seriously injured.

It began about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, when deputies with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office were called to a shooting club in the 11100 block of Northeast 76th Street, south of Padden Parkway and west of 117th Avenue, also known as state Highway 503. There was a report of a woman armed with a shotgun and contemplating suicide.

Sheriff’s deputies surrounded the Vancouver Trap Club at 11100 N.E. 76th St., established a command post and detoured traffic in the busy area. That continued for hours, in a field outside the shooting club.

Deputies tried to persuade the woman to surrender so she could be helped.

Tuesday afternoon, a 911 dispatcher said trained negotiators were speaking with the woman, and that deputies wanted people to stay away.

“She was asked for hours to put the shotgun down and wouldn’t do it,” said sheriff’s Sgt. K.C. Kasberg.

The standoff continued, with SWAT officers bringing in special equipment including a Bear Cat armored vehicle, ballistic shields and a robot. Officers also were prepared to use Tasers and less-lethal guns designed to disable a person.

During the day, watched by the robot’s camera, the woman was lying in the grass. But, as darkness fell, she started moving, Kasberg said.

“We didn’t want her to go mobile on us because she was armed with the shotgun,” he added.

That’s when SWAT officers moved close with the armored vehicle. They were radioing her every move and whether her hands were on the shotgun just before she was captured.

They fired two electronic Taser rounds at her, and two less-lethal foam rounds, Kasberg said.

Struck about 8:35 p.m., the woman became cooperative and was taken into custody. AMR Northwest paramedics took her to a hospital for bruising caused by the rounds that hit her.

“It was the perfect outcome,” Kasberg said.

SWAT officers in Vancouver and the unincorporated county are called to such standoffs frequently. They have a reputation for expertise and avoiding serious harm to themselves and others when possible.

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.

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