LaFAYETTE - After clearing all of the other people out of the Pair-Pine Mobile Home Park and surrounding one home with officers, police said they had to throw cans of pepper spray through a criminal's window to draw him out.
With help from about 15 members of the Walker County Sheriff's Office's special operations group, LaFayette Police arrested 33-year-old Fernando Gene Fernandez around 8 a.m. Wednesday. Fernandez remains at Walker County Jail without bond on a burglary charge and two counts of aggravated assault.
LaFayette Police Captain Stacey Meeks gives this account: Around 5 a.m. Wednesday, Fernandez walked over to Lot No. 25 inside the trailer park, located at 38 Jessie Drive.
Fernandez approached the window, which is permanently open and only about 4 feet off the ground. He pushed aside the piece of cardboard that the resident placed inside the window, and he pointed his gun inside, right at the resident's head.
Fernandez, whose family owns the trailer park, yelled incoherently before going back to his own mobile home, located two lots away. Someone called police, but when officers knocked on his door, Fernandez refused to come outside.
Police then told everyone else who lives in the other 25 trailers to walk to a designated area across the street. They asked for help from the county's special operations group, and officers surrounded the home.
Fernandez did not respond to calls on his cellphone or to requests to come outside from an officer talking on a speaker.
"We felt it was safe enough to take action," Meeks said.
Around 8 a.m., officers fired four rounds of pepper spray into the house. Fernandez yelled, and police told him to come outside. That's when he gave himself up.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476.