AMHERST TWP. — Two South Amherst firefighters responding to a brush fire were held hostage by a man with a deer rifle outside his home Wednesday night.
“They all have families, we want them to get of here safe,” Lt. Heath Tester of the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office told suspect Roy Griffith Jr. as they communicated on Fire Department portable radios during the approximately 2 ½ hour standoff that ended peacefully at 9:14 p.m. “We’re not going to hurt you. We want a peaceful solution.”
STEVE MANHEIM/CHRONICLE
Emergency vehicles block Quarry Road at Hornyak Avenue in Amherst Township during a standoff Oct. 21.
At one point, Griffith demanded beer and medication He also said he had night vision gear as Lorain County SWAT team members encircled the area.
“Don’t try no bull—-, I’ve got a lot of mental problems.” Griffith said. “No, I don’t trust you. Because you’ve already got people in the field. I can smell ‘em and I heard ‘em.”
View a partial transcript of negotiations HERE.
The incident began with a call at 6:37 p.m. Wednesday about a fire in the woods by the home at 106 Hornyak St. that Griffith lives in with his elderly parents, said South Amherst Fire Chief Al Schmitz. He said Griffith accidentally started the fire while burning leaves outside his home on a windy night and a neighbor called in the fire.
About seven firefighters on two trucks arrived at 6:48 p.m. with one truck driving up to the woods. Tester said as firefighters began fighting the fire, they noticed Griffith pacing back and forth outside his home.
Tester said Griffith then came out of his home with a .308-caliber deer rifle and pointed it at firefighters. Firefighters Dennis Hevener and John Wright were ordered at gunpoint to get on their knees while a third firefighter ran away, Tester said.
Firefighters in the second truck backed off. Hevener said all Griffith would say is that he was having a bad day.
“I kept telling him, ‘Let’s not make this any worse than it already is,’ ” Hevener said. “He’d start to get all flustered and rattled, and I’d talk to him, and he’d calm back down.”
Hevener said he got a portable radio from the fire truck, allowing Griffith and Tester to communicate. Tester said they eventually communicated by cell phone near the end of the standoff.
He eventually convinced a tearful Griffith to free Wright and then to put down the rifle and surrender. Tester said Griffith said he hadn’t been taking anti-psychotic medication for a few days before the incident. The Ohio Turnpike was closed as a precautionary measure.
Griffith, 53, was arrested and charged with felonious assault, kidnapping, inducing panic and having a weapon while intoxicated. He was being held without bond at the Lorain County Jail. He is due in Oberlin Municipal Court on Friday.
Hornyak Street resident Jeff Hembree Sr., 48, said he grew up in the neighborhood off Quarry Road, which he described as peaceful. Hembree said he knows Griffith and his parents well, and the incident was totally out of character for Griffith, whom he described as friendly. Hembree said Griffith often waves when he drives by and in the past fixed the bicycle of his 16-year-old daughter, Brittany Griffith, when she was a young girl.
“He’s a good guy,” Hembree Sr. said. “Something really had to happen in his life to do this. I hated to see this.”
A relieved Hevener thanked Tester, who said he felt bad that he had to choose between Hevener and Wright when asking that one firefighter be released. Hevener joked that there is no firefighter training for being held hostage.
“Thirty-six years and it never ceases to amaze me the things I run into,” Hevener said. “Hindsight being 20-20, I should’ve started writing a damn book 30 years ago.”
Click here to read this story on The Chronicle-Telegram.
Content copyright The Chronicle-Telegram.
Your #1 source for Lorain County News.
The post Firefighters taken hostage; no one hurt appeared first on Chronicle-Telegram.