A man was arrested after allegedly taking a woman hostage and barricading himself in a hotel room at the Caesars Palace resort in Las Vegas, police said.
The hours-long standoff reached its most dramatic point when a room window shattered and frightened guests were evacuated from the pool below as furniture and other objects fell from the unit on the 21st floor.
“The suspect has been taken into custody. The female is currently with officers,” the Las Vegas Police Department said in messages posted mid-afternoon Tuesday. It was not made clear how police defused the hostage situation, though no injuries were reported and SWAT and crisis negotiators were on the scene.
Police records indicate that the man arrested was Matthew John Ermond Mannix, 35, local Fox 5 reported. The event number listed with his arrest matches the one used by Las Vegas police in reference to Tuesday’s standoff.
Mannix has been charged with kidnapping, coercion with force or threat of force, resisting a public officer, disregarding the safety of a person or property and destruction of property. Two of the counts carry a deadly weapon enhancement, which can increase the severity of the sentence if Mannix is found guilty.
Las Vegas police Capt. Stephen Connell said the standoff began about 9:15 a.m. July 11 with a report from hotel security that a man and woman were arguing and that the man pulled the woman into a room “by force.” The ordeal lasted just shy of six hours, with police entering the room and detaining the suspect around 2:45 p.m.
Connell told reporters during the standoff that the woman believed to be held hostage “has been heard from,” and was believed to be “still OK.” SWAT officers secured the hallway outside the room and Connell said it was not clear to police if the man was armed.
Outside, guests heard glass break and saw curtains billow from a broken window about two-thirds up the 29-storey Palace Tower, one of six towers at Caesars Palace, an iconic and historic centrepiece of the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel has nearly 4,000 rooms.
A photo taken at the scene shows a man wearing a white button-up shirt standing in front of the broken window.
Emma Snyder said she was near a resort swimming pool on her first day of vacation from Appleton, Wis., when she heard several loud bangs and saw falling glass. She said it looked like sparkles.
“People were just staring up and looking,” she said.
Beverly Blackwell of Chattanooga, Tenn., said she was lounging by a pool with her husband Chris when she heard glass break and saw curtains flutter from the broken window.
“When we saw the window shatter it was kind of a surreal feeling, it got pretty scary,” Blackwell said. “We were told to gather our stuff and rush out the back.”
Both Snyder and Blackwell told the Associated Press they thought there might be a shooter or an attack as staff yelled for guests to evacuate the pool area.
Snyder said some people hid by a staircase while a coffeemaker, hair dryer and desk flew out the window.
Blackwell said that after 30 minutes, people were told they could return to their rooms.
Broken glass and furniture fell intermittently for about an hour, said the Associated Press writer John Marshall, who was on vacation with his family in a room on the fifth floor of the Palace Tower.
“It looks like he’s pretty much emptied the room of furniture,” Marshall said of the man police said was barricaded upstairs. Marshall saw seat cushions, a chair and other items hit a ledge outside the window of his own room, and said some fell to the pool area after it had been evacuated.
Hotel employees told Marshall and his family that the incident was on the 21st floor and that guests on other floors were not evacuated or restricted from movement.
“In the casino, it’s business as usual,” Marshall said, although hotel security officers and police were visible in the guest valet area.
Marshall said he and his family had no initial word from the hotel about what was happening but said they remained in their room as a precaution. Hotel housekeeping staff members were still working in nearby rooms, he said.
In a statement after the arrest, Dayna Calkins, a spokesperson for the casino owner, Caesars Entertainment, referred to the standoff as “a security incident inside a guest room” that had been resolved. The statement credited Las Vegas police and the company’s “security and armed response teams.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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