Seven-hour police standoff in Palo Alto ends peacefully Seven-hour police standoff in Palo Alto ends peacefully (April 29, 2005)

Man kicks out police-car window en route to a psychiatric evaluation and is arrested
An apparently depressed and suicidal man in his 20s retreated into a Palo Alto residence and refused to come out or make contact with officers Wednesday night.

A police SWAT team found him in the house about 11 p.m. and took him into custody, but later arrested him when he became enraged and kicked out a patrol car window while being taken to Valley Medical Center in San Jose for a psychiatric evaluation.

Officers then placed him under arrest and headed instead to the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose, where there is a lock-down psychiatric-observation unit.

The man was identified as Kristopher Arnold Hansen, 24, of 807 Sutter Ave., at Ross Road in south Palo Alto -- a house reportedly owned by an aunt and where, contrary to reports Wednesday night, he had taken refuge after an incident at the Sutter-Ross intersection. Initial reports indicated he had gone into the home of a woman in her 80s next door to the Sutter house.

The episode began about 4 p.m. when a city utility worker saw Hansen and another person apparently arguing in the intersection, and intervened after notifying police. Police said Hansen broke the front window of the utility truck then ran inside the house. A person who entered the house quickly came out and said the man was suicidal, at which time the responding officers called in reinforcements.

Police cordoned off Ross and Sutter.

Officers Kim Collet and Dave Trujillo of the department's Hostage Negotiation Team tried repeatedly from 4 p.m. to shortly before 11 p.m. to get him to come out or answer the telephone before the SWAT team entered the house and found him.

A neighbor said the man has been under a restraining order to stay away from the mother of his 4-year-old son, and had had a court appointment earlier Wednesday. >

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