ALLENDALE TWP., MI (WHTC-AM/FM, Aug. 26, 2023) – A 56-year-old woman is safe, while a 37-year-old man lost his life, after an overnight standoff with police at an Allendale home.
Around 8:40 PM on Friday night, Ottawa County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence on Vail Avenue, in a subdivision north of Lake Michigan Drive, west of 48th Avenue, on a report of a man armed with a firearm and making threatening remarks. According to Detective Captain Jake Sparks, the man apparently kept the woman inside of the home against her will, and that the two are known to each other, but Sparks didn’t go into any circumstances that may have sparked the incident.
The department’s Critical Response Team, with trained crisis negotiators, was deployed to the scene, and talks with the man began. Supporting officers from the Holland Department of Public Safety and troopers from the Michigan State Police also arrived.
About 8:30 AM on Saturday, the man stepped out of the residence with the woman and started shooting towards the authorities at the scene, who did return gunfire. The woman was freed at that time, was safely taken away, and was reunited with family members, while the man was found dead inside of the residence about three hours later.
The area had been cordoned off during the incident, and there were no reports of anyone else hurt during the course of the situation, or during the exchange of gunfire. Since police did fire their weapons, the state police will take over the investigation into the matter, as is standard procedure in such cases.
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