8/3/18
By: Rob Moore and Dean Dyer
(CLEVELAND) – White County Sheriff Neal Walden on Friday released details of a lengthy standoff with shots fired in eastern White County Thursday.
“About 4:14 yesterday [Thursday] afternoon, officers were dispatched to a vehicle accident on Highway 255 South in the area of Grover Miles Road,” Walden said. “The accident involved a vehicle that had struck a power pole there, and then when he struck the power pole, power lines, pole and all came down, blocking the road.”
The male driver of the vehicle fled the accident scene.
“Prior to law enforcement’s arrival on scene, the suspect exited the vehicle and ran into a residence across the road,” Walden said. “The owner of the home was there when the suspect entered the home. He ran in hollering, ‘Call 9-1-1!’, then he was very erratic and grabbed a knife up and started cutting his arms. When that happened, the homeowner left the house. In other words, he ran – got out of the house, which was the right thing for him to do.”
That’s when the male suspect barricaded himself inside the house.
“Once my officers arrived on scene, they heard several gunshots, so they secured the location, secured the residence, identified the homeowner and assured that there was no one else in the house except for the suspect,” Walden said.
Additional personnel and resources were requested to the scene, including the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Patrol and several agencies from Habersham County.
“The GBI brought their robot out there and we used it to get into the residence and do the negotiating,” Walden said. “We had a negotiator there. Negotiations went on for about seven hours.”
Walden identified the suspect as Nathan Shane McCain, 39, of Cleveland.
McCain is believed to be from Florida, but was staying at an address in Cleveland, Walden said, adding investigators are continuing to piece that information together.
“Finally, we had to deploy some tear gas, some OC gas, into the residence,” Walden said. “He immediately exited the residence when we did that, and we took him into custody.”
McCain is charged with so far with obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and leaving the scene of an accident.
“There will be numerous other charges, but it’s still under investigation at this time, and there’s more charges that will be added when the investigated is complete,” Walden said.
Walden said he is pleased with the positive outcome of Thursday’s lengthy incident, because no officers were injured, the homeowner escaped safely, and the suspect was taken into custody.
“Everything went good, other than the fact we had to deploy the gas,” Walden said. “There were no law enforcement shots fired, so we were good there. We had probably 25 to 30 people out there. There were officers from the sheriff’s office, Habersham County Sheriff’s Office, Demorest P.D., Alto P.D., GSP, GBI, fire department, EMS, so we had a big detail on scene out there last night, but thank goodness everything went well. We took him into custody and cleared the scene somewhere around 1 o’clock this morning.”
The suspect was checked by White County EMS personnel, before being taken to jail.
“He didn’t have any cuts to amount to anything,” Walden said. “He had several scratches on him, but as far as any deep cuts that required anything other than cleaning, none was present.”
Walden said the incident lasted into the early-morning hours of today [Friday], Aug. 3.
“We had about a seven-hour standoff out there last night,” Walden said. “I think we cleared the scene somewhere around 1:30 this morning.”
Ga. 255 South (Blue Creek Road) was closed from the intersection of Blue Creek and Duncan Bridge roads all the way to Ga. 255 South and Goatneck Road for about seven hours.
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It was a long, tense ordeal,” Walden said. “It was cooperative effort between all those agencies, and thank goodness everything went well. Nobody got hurt.”
Superb and professional work by the LEOs! Thank you.