From his repair shop on the outskirts of Cheyenne, Charles Mendoza had a front row seat as SWAT teams responded to a man reportedly armed with a knife and barricaded in a house Monday afternoon.
A joint SWAT team of the Cheyenne Police Department and Laramie County Sheriff’s Office responded to Murray Street near Laramie County Community College after receiving reports that Robert Crenshaw, 47, had put a knife to someone's throat.
The sheriff’s office reported in a Tuesday statement that the dispute stemmed from “an incident that had taken place a week prior regarding an e-bike and a mutual friend.”
Mendoza said that when he saw police cars and armored trucks pour into his neighborhood, he wanted no part of the action.
“I was kind of inside the shop minding my own business,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday. “I didn’t know what was going on, but I just stayed out of it.”
Mendoza said he had never seen such a forceful law enforcement response, which included two large armored vehicles, especially on the road he travels every day for work. Among the SWAT vehicles were also ambulances and fire trucks, he said.
“Just [the] first time I’ve seen so many of them,” he said of his reaction to the emergency response vehicles. He thought that, “Somebody [must have] got killed or something.”
‘Tyrants’
Jorden Halversen at trucking company Ten Co LLC said he got an up-close view of the SWAT response because the vehicles were blocking him from returning to work.
“We rolled up and it starts off as one cop, and the next thing we know we’re seeing like eight or nine roll up, and we’re like ‘what the f***,’” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Halversen said he and his coworkers were alarmed and expected an extreme crime must have been unfolding, given the presence of the SWAT team and its armored vehicles.
“They’re getting, like, level five armored plates and shit … so we’re like, ‘Oh f***, something’s going down,’” he said.
Halversen said he tried to find a way around the vehicle blockade.
It was then that he saw what he described as a “bomb squad” and “the military” entering the area. He said such a response appeared disruptive and unnecessary.
“In my opinion, I think the authorities around here are tyrants and jokes,” he said. “I’ve seen less cops pull up for a school shooting.”
Safety First
Abel Mendoza, whose house faces Murray Street, said he felt comforted by the law enforcement presence because he knew it was intended to keep him and his family safe.
Other than mild curiosity, he said he wasn’t bothered by the vehicles.
“I even went to the street to see what’s going on?” he said. “I just started seeing police cars going around and park right there.
“I wasn’t scared at all because we didn’t hear anything, maybe a sick person or something like that,” he added.
A strong police presence in his neighborhood signifies to him that he can rest easy, knowing he will be protected, Mendoza added.
“I mean, I feel safer because not only yesterday, during the day they’re just cruising around and I like to see it,” he said. “I like to see the police going through because that means we’re not alone.”
Not ‘Like Rambo’
Laramie County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Aaron Veldheer estimated that about 20 vehicles arrived on scene. Such a response was necessary given the fact that Crenshaw had barricaded himself in the house, he said.
Deputies with patrol cars tried for more than 90 minutes to extract Crenshaw from the home to no avail, Veldheer said.
SWAT teams specialize in resolving these situations and were quickly able to successfully bring the standoff to a peaceful close.
“We tried to get the suspect to come out of the house peacefully, but he decided he didn’t want to and deputies on scene believed he was screwing his door shut,” he said. “For his safety and that of our deputies, we requested that our combined SWAT team come out to help get him out of the house peacefully, which ultimately occurred.”
SWAT responders have additional training compared to police officers that can help them enter buildings that are barricaded by a dangerous individual.
Crisis negotiators paired with the SWAT team also helped ease the tension by guaranteeing Crenshaw’s safety.
“First, we’re going to try to talk to somebody,” Veldheer said. “We’re not just going to go kick in the door like Rambo.”
The sight of a SWAT team arriving on scene was enough to convince Crenshaw to surrender himself peacefully, Veldheer added.
He apologized for disrupting the neighborhood, but said the peaceful resolution was worth the inconvenience.
“It is never our intention to disrupt peoples’ lives like that, but at the same time we need to make sure that everyone, suspect included, our deputies, we all get home safely and we get them into custody,” Veldheer said.
Even though Crenshaw was believed to only have a knife, the armored trucks were a necessary precaution in case Crenshaw had more weapons inside the home, Veldheer said.
SWAT responders also used drones to issue loud commands audible “throughout the neighborhood.”
“It’s Wyoming, everybody has guns here,” he said. “It’s not a stretch to believe that somebody would have a weapon in the home.”
Jackson Walker can be reached at walker@cowboystatedaily.com.
