Hours-long standoff at Los Angeles veterans hall ends peacefully with gunman's arrest

4/25/2014
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — Authorities say a nearly 7 ½-hour standoff with a distraught gunman at a Los Angeles veterans’ hall has ended peacefully.

Police say the 52-year-old man left the building and was arrested shortly before 3 p.m. today. Earlier, a SWAT team fired tear gas inside the hall but the man threw one canister back out of a window.

Police say the man, who isn’t a veteran, was despondent over a relationship when he entered the Disabled American Veterans hall in the San Fernando Valley at about 7:30 a.m. with what appeared to be a shotgun.

Police say at one point the man threatened to kill himself.

About a dozen nearby homes were evacuated during the standoff.