Man Surrenders to Police After Hour-Long Standoff in NJ Self-Storage Unit

A man barricaded himself inside a 10-by-8-foot unit at South Jersey Self Storage in Blackwood, N.J., on Saturday with five firearms but surrendered peacefully to responding officers from the Gloucester Township Police Department. The standoff took about an hour, and officers recovered three rifles and two handguns from the unit, according to news sources.

Blackwood is an unincorporated area within Gloucester Township. Officers from the township responded to a request from the Runnemede Police Department to “to locate a subject who may have had a change in mental status,” according to the source. It is unclear if the man was a tenant at the self-storage facility on Harmon Drive.

When officers located the suspect at the storage business and found he had barricaded himself inside the unit, they set up a perimeter around the unit and issued a “shelter-in-place” order, which is similar to a lockdown, at a nearby business, police officials said. The police also contacted the man’s family, who said he might be in possession of several firearms.

Officers from the township’s Special Response Team and Crisis Negotiation Unit handled the incident. The unidentified suspect was transported to Kennedy University Hospital in Cherry Hill, N.J., for “medical clearance,” police said.

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