Spanic stabs woman & takes baby hostage

[Hellcat]

6

Police shoot suspect
Man allegedly stabs woman, takes baby hostage
By ANGIE PARKINSON
angiep@thespectrum.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ST. GEORGE -- St. George Police shot a suspect allegedly involved in a stabbing incident Friday. Police were called to a domestic situation at approximately 8:30 p.m. on 1405 N. Dixie Downs Road. The suspect, a 28-year-old Hispanic male whose name the officials had not released as of press time Friday, allegedly stabbed a woman he was arguing with in the hand.

The man then took the woman's baby hostage and refused to leave the trailer home. The man continued to threaten the
aby with the knife and even injured the baby. As the situation escalated police used non-lethal force, such as taser guns and non-lethal bullets, to try and force the man out of the house.

"That

didn't prove effective so we had t
o respond to his escalation of violence," said St. George Police Department spokesman Craig Harding.

Officers then shot the suspect and took him into custody. He and the baby were taken to Dixie Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Eunice Lopez, who lives three trailers away from the suspect, was among the neighbors that police evacuated. She said she and her family jumped her fence in order to distance themselves from the stand-off. She said she had not heard or seen anything and did not know the residents involved in the situation.

She and her children were sitting on some curbing about a block away along with another neighbor, Jose Verdubo, who said he had been out of his home for two hours waiting for the incident to be resolved.

Charges had not been determined by press time.


http://www.thespectrum.com/news/s
tori
es/20...ews/725760.html

 

[Whitebear]

6

Utah: Baby Held Hostage, Stabbed in Standoff by Illegal Migrant Valentin S. Echevarri

June 26, 2004, 1:13 PM EDT


ST. GEORGE, Utah -- A man who took a baby hostage stabbed the infant during a standoff with police before officers shot and wounded the man in the hip.

The baby was flown to a Salt Lake City hospital Friday night with stab wounds to some internal organs, but was expected to live, St. George police spokesman Craig Harding said Saturday.

Police identified the suspect as Valentin S. Echevarria, and
aid the child was believed to be his girlfriend's. Officials were not sure if the child was his.

The child's mother ran to a neighbor and called police Friday night, saying she had been stabb

ed in the hand by a man who still had her baby in her home.
n
Officers negotiated with the man -- who was in the country illegally -- in Spanish, but he did not drop the knife and continued to threaten the child.

When officers saw Echevarria stab the baby, they tried to subdue him with the beanbag rounds, then bullets, Harding said.

"It stopped him from doing what he was doing and we were able to grab the child and rush it to medical services," Harding said.

An officer grabbed the child and ran it to a waiting ambulance. Harding believed the child is a boy around 6-7 months old, but wasn't certain about the gender.

Echevarria, 28, had been deported recently, Harding said. He was treated and released for a gunshot wound to the hip, then taken to a jail and
held on charges of aggravated attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping, Harding said.