After a seven-hour standoff Thursday night, a Morgan Hill man
crawled from his garage while SWAT and Morgan Hill Police
Department officers waited in his driveway. Steven Johnston, 31,
was not arrested but was taken by ambulance to Emergency
Psychiatric Services in San Jose for evaluation.
Morgan Hill – After a seven-hour standoff Thursday night, a Morgan Hill man crawled from his garage while SWAT and Morgan Hill Police Department officers waited in his driveway.
Steven Johnston, 31, was not arrested but was taken by ambulance to Emergency Psychiatric Services in San Jose for evaluation.
“My hat is off to all the officers involved in this,” said Morgan Hill Police Chief Bruce Cumming. “This is something the public doesn’t see, the volatile nature of these situations. It is extremely dangerous, because when you factor in that he was smoking meth, even during the incident, you just don’t know what’s going to happen. Because of the way our team, our whole department, really, works together, they were able to handle this effectively.”
No one was injured in the incident, which began at 9:06pm when the Morgan Hill Police Department received a call from San Jose Police Department requesting officers check on Johnston. His ex-wife now lives in San Jose, and she called SJPD to report Johnston may have stopped taking prescribed medications and was possibly using methamphetamine.
According to Morgan Hill police Cmdr. Joe Sampson, Johnston’s ex-wife told police he had called her and told her she should leave her house because something bad was going to happen. He also told her that “if the police tried to shoot at him he would shoot back.”
When officers arrived at the residence on San Ramon Drive, an officer called Johnston on his cell phone and asked him to come outside to talk to them. Sampson said Johnston was irrational, threatened the officers and hung up the phone.
Initially, the five officers on the graveyard shift responded to the call, along with a multi-service officer, a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit plus two other units; when officers tried to re-contact Johnston but were rebuffed, three hostage negotiators were called in.
Johnston apparently became enraged after sporadic contact with the negotiators and began destroying the inside of his home. At times, officers surrounding the house could see Johnston through a front window and a rear window. They also saw him carrying around an old military rifle. Frequently, Johnston could be heard in his garage, yelling and banging things, possibly throwing things at the garage door.
Sampson and Morgan Hill police Cmdr. David Swing arrived at the residence, and MHPD’s SWAT team was called to respond when it was determined that Johnston could be a danger to the public or his wife and was unable to take care of himself.
Nearby residents were evacuated, and SWAT members established a perimeter around Johnston’s house.
Officers remained on the scene until 4am, when negotiators determined that Johnston was not going to cooperate and leave the residence on his own. He continued to have bizarre mood swings, Sampson said, and sporadically yell at the officers and carry around the rifle.
MHPD officials decided to bring in non-burning chemical agents from Gilroy Police Department to force Johnston out of the home. SWAT officers fired the chemical canisters into the residence, causing Johnston to retreat into the garage with the rifle. He continued to threaten officers, and the team opened the exterior garage door. As the door raised, Johnston threw down the rifle and attempted to close the door. SWAT members fired “pepper ball” munitions at Johnston’s feet, and he surrendered, crawling out of the garage to the waiting officers.
Nearby residents were returned to their home, and Johnston’s home was turned over to a family member at 4:45am.
