A standoff in Gering continued into Wednesday afternoon, marking nearly 22 hours that a man keeping an hostage has held people at bay.
At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, a Scottsbluff man barricaded himself inside a residence at the end of 19th Street in Gering.
Leaders of the Gering Police Department, Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Office and Nebraska State Patrol are shown talking at the scene of a standoff in Gering Tuesday afternoon. Officers with the Scottsbluff Police Department and the county’s SWAT team were also on site, having responded as reports of shots fired were reported in the area at about 3:30 p.m.
Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman said in a news release Wednesday that the man has been identified as 37-year-old Bradley Garcia.
Garcia fled after a Scotts Bluff County deputy attempted to stop his vehicle Tuesday for a traffic violation.
A brief pursuit ensued that included Gering Police, during which Garcia fired shots at pursuing officers, although he didn’t hit anything. The pursuit ended when Garcia crashed his car into a garage in the 2300 block of 19th Street in Gering, Overman said.
Garcia then entered the home and took three female occupants hostage, Overman said.
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Law enforcement converged on the area at about 3:30 p.m. Shots were again reported in the neighborhood near two schools, Gering High School and Northfield Elementary.
School officials immediately put all schools in Gering on lockdown, which was then narrowed to Gering High School and Northfield at about 3:38 p.m., when an alert was sent out to parents.
Parents and students monitored alerts and social media as officials then placed the schools on “secure” status, meaning no one was allowed in or out. At about 5:04 p.m., Gering police and emergency responders started a controlled release of students from Gering High School. A controlled release at Northfield Elementary had occurred earlier and at the other schools in the district. By 6:09 p.m., all students had been released from schools and all activities and other events were canceled. On Wednesday morning, Gering Public Schools announced it was canceling schools for the day out of an abundance of caution.
A Gering school resource officer is pictured as kids are being released from school in a controlled release as officers handled a nearby standoff.
Garcia eventually allowed two girls to leave unharmed, but he kept an adult woman as a hostage.
Throughout the night, vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT vehicle, remained positioned during the standoff at or near the intersection.
Armed officers are pictured at the scene of a standoff on 19th Street near Kings Road in Gering Tuesday afternoon. Though reporters at the scene reported shots having been fired, Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman said none of the shots had been fired by law enforcement.
As the standoff continued into late Tuesday night, specialized teams from the Nebraska State Patrol were seen arriving, with another armored vehicle having arrived and a helicopter having transported officers to the site. At about 11 p.m., SWAT teams were readying for a response, but still had not entered the home or taken other overt action as of about 11:40 p.m.
Throughout the entirety of the event, streets in the area have been closed by law enforcement or firefighters.
Overman said negotiators and tactical teams from Scotts Bluff County, the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI were at the scene as of Wednesday afternoon.
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