AP — A man who allegedly shot a veteran police officer then held authorities at bay for more than 10 hours walked out of a northeast Oklahoma City residence Thursday evening and surrendered.
The man, identified by police as John Ivory Thomas, walked out of the house at 6:35 p.m., Sgt. Paco Balderrama said.
Police had been trying to establish contact with Thomas, 55, since he allegedly shot Sgt. Clay Williams in the collarbone about 8 a.m. Williams was not seriously injured and was able to return home hours before the standoff ended.
"Thirty to 40 rounds (of gunfire) were heard throughout the day, one just 10 minutes before he came out," Balderrama said. "We really didn't know what to expect.
"After many hours of talking to him, trying to communicate by cell phone, land line and a tactical phone, the tactical team ended up breaching a couple of doors using a robot and setting off canisters of (carbon dioxide) gas through windows to coax him out."
Thomas was taken to police headquarters for questioning and would later be booked into the Oklahoma County jail, Balderrama said. Police plan to file complaints of assault with a deadly weapon and violation of a victim protective order, he said.
Williams, 47, and another officer were trying to investigate a report of a domestic disturbance when the 19-year veteran officer was shot, Capt. Steve McCool said.
"It appears that Sgt. Williams and another officer made it just inside the front of the house when they confronted the suspect," McCool said.
They told the man to drop the gun. After Williams was shot, the other officer pulled him from the home and returned fire. Williams was released from the University of Oklahoma Medical Center around 3 p.m., hospital spokesman Dennis Gimmel said.
Balderrama said Thomas had a lengthy criminal record and police have had contact with him since about 1993. Police blocked off streets for about one-half mile in either direction to keep people out of the area during the standoff, Balderrama said.
McCool said that before the shooting, a person had come out of the house and warned officers that the man inside "hates cops" and had a lot of weapons.
Williams has six biological children and six stepchildren, as well as five grandchildren. Initial word of the shooting was frightening, his son said, but the fear quickly faded.
"You get the phone call that your father's been shot, that kind of scares you," Clay Williams II, the officer's 26-year-old son, told The Oklahoman. "But as soon as you hear he was talking to people, he was calm, at that point that's when I knew, 'He's hurt, but he's not that bad.'"
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
