A seven-hour police standoff in West Davis ended tragically early this morning with the discovery of two bodies inside a Glacier Drive home.
Davis Assistant Police Chief Darren Pytel confirmed this morning that both bodies — one male, one female — had gunshot wounds when officers found them on the second floor of the house at about 2 a.m.
Police so far are declining to say whether the incident is believed to be a murder-suicide.
The pair’s cause and manner of death will be determined by the Yolo County coroner’s office, which as of about 8 a.m. today had not yet responded to the scene due to the ongoing police investigation. Pytel said it was expected to take “a good portion of the day.”
“At this point there doesn’t appear to be any outstanding suspects, but we will not be able to confirm that until the crime scene is completely processed,” Pytel said, adding that investigators were unable to begin that task until tear gas that had been deployed into the home had cleared up.
It was reports of gunfire that initially sent police to the 2200 block of Glacier Drive east of Denali Drive shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday, after police received a 911 call “from a male subject who reported that there were two gunshot victims in the house, one male, one female,” Waltz said.
When questioned further, the caller hung up, and “we’ve lost contact,” Davis police Lt. Tom Waltz said during a 9:40 p.m. press briefing, nearly two hours after emergency personnel began assembling in the area. “We’ve had no response from the house at all.”
Waltz said police at one point received information that the occupant of the house may be armed with a rifle, prompting the department to summon the Davis/West Sacramento SWAT team as well as the Yolo County Bomb Squad.
Police also evacuated several neighboring houses on Glacier Drive and Isle Royale Lane to the south, warning occupants of “gunshots and danger,” one resident told The Davis Enterprise via Twitter.
A recording of the initial police dispatch activity, obtained by The Enterprise, indicates the caller identified himself as Joseph, “and he said he was going to remain on scene. Unknown where the weapon is,” the dispatcher told responding officers.
Police traced the phone number used by the 911 caller back to the owner of the home, according to Waltz.
As police cruisers, fire engines, ambulances and several armored vehicles — including the West Sacramento Police Department’s Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle — descended upon the scene, police attempted to communicate with the home’s occupants via loudspeaker, ordering anyone inside to “come out with your hands up.”
Again, they got no response.
As the night wore on, some residents of the apartments on the north side of Glacier ventured outside to observe the police activity, while other curious onlookers clustered near the perimeters cordoned of with yellow crime-scene tape.
“It’s been kind of a long, drawn-out process,” one woman, who declined to give her name, said as she watched the events unfold from outside her apartment. “It’s just something we didn’t expect — it’s a quiet neighborhood.”
At about 11:45 p.m., after the arrival of a second MRAP from the Woodland Police Department, officers dispatched a remote-controlled robot, whose initial attempt to breach the home’s front door resulted in a cracking sound, followed by a loud report that seemed to rattle the neighborhood.
That attempt failed, but a second one was successful, allowing the robot to enter and clear the first floor of the home.
A search of the second floor required officers to make entry into the house, which they did after firing more than a dozen tear-gas canisters into the structure. Still uncertain whether an active shooter remained on scene, officers also deployed several flash-bang devices as they conducted their search.
In addition to the two bodies, officers also found two dogs and several cats, which had survived the incident, Waltz said.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
