Raleigh Police are defending their actions after a stand-off ended with a suspect dead and officer injured.
Police say they responded to a call of a man threatening to commit suicide at the Colonial Grand at Brier Creek Place shortly before 11 a.m. Monday.
When a tactical team attempted to enter the apartment around 7:30 p.m., the apartment door was blocked from the inside and the suspect fired several shots, striking Officer Adam Young, 30, multiple times.
Police say Young was treated and transported to WakeMed with nonlife-threatening injuries. The stand-off ended, however, with the suspect, 48-year-old Steven Meyer killing himself.
"A volley of fire came from within the apartment towards our officer,” Police Chief Harry Dolan explained Tuesday. “He was struck several times -- he was struck one time underneath the vest, underneath the arm, he was struck one time in the leg."
Right after the shooting, police blocked off the area and told media to get back and duck down.
After several hours, another round of explosions erupted just before 10 p.m., followed by a loud ‘boom’ at 11:23. Police say those explosions were chemical munitions.
Officers say when they entered the apartment they found Meyer dead from a gunshot wound.
The ordeal lasted more than 12 hours, with residents of the complex being evacuated to a nearby hotel. Some residents, however, asked why they were not evacuated sooner.
"If they knew it was going to go down like that, I feel like they should have done it earlier so everybody would've been on the safe side," resident Marie Ray said.
Raleigh Police say they issued two evacuation orders, one before they breached the apartment and one after the first shooting. They defend their patience in the situation.
"We wanted in every regard to remedy the situation to where we could take him into custody, but that wasn't going to happen," Dolan said.
Retired Raleigh Police psychologist Dr. Michael Teague says officers try to evaluate the suspect in the field to convince them not to take an often fatal step.
"We try to pick up any psychological factors the person's going through -- either deep depression, something that's kind of temporary -- that we can kind of give them an alternative without taking that last step and trying to de-escalate the situation," Teague explained.
Teague praised the Raleigh Police in this situation saying, "I think they did very well; the fact that the only person who was killed was the one who was dedicated to killing himself.
“I know they hate that one of the officers got shot, but no matter what you do it's just hard."
Dolan says the negotiations had started around noon and at around 7:30 police decided to send the S.W.A.T. team to enter the apartment.
"The negotiations became very ineffective, Dolan said. “It became very obvious through the crisis negotiators that he was not coming out of the apartment."
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