A 59-year-old man with multiple handguns and at least one rifle or shotgun inside a northwest Omaha house kept law enforcement officers at bay for 25 hours before he walked out Saturday night and was taken into custody.
While the standoff ended peacefully, authorities said the man had fired at deputies and shot and killed a police K-9.
Mark L'Heureux, facing a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, stayed in the basement of his house near 83rd Street and Keystone Drive, said Tom Wheeler, the chief deputy of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.
Deputies went to the house about 5:30 p.m. Friday to serve a Douglas County Board of Mental Health warrant ordering the psychiatric evaluation. L'Heureux retreated, locked himself inside and "told us he wasn't coming out," Wheeler said. L'Heureux was alone in the house.
Wheeler said L'Heureux often paced and at times curled up on a bench, but was never fully asleep.
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He was undeterred by tear gas and the cold — authorities cut power and gas to the house Friday night — and resisted deputies' attempts to talk to him by phone. Ultimately, water shot from fire department hoses into basement windows forced him out, Wheeler said.
"The gas seemingly didn't have an effect on him," he said.
L'Heureux on Friday night fired seven rounds at deputies who were trying to dislodge a robot outfitted with a camera that had become stuck inside the house, twice striking the lead deputy's ballistic shield, Wheeler said. The robot let officials get a closer view of L'Heureux and the house.
Saturday afternoon, Wheeler said, L'Heureux shot and killed an Omaha police dog, Kobus.
Snipers wearing tactical gear were in position outside the house.
