An alert from a police license plate reader triggered an attempted car stop along a Benicia freeway, a reported exchange of gunfire and a massive police response that lasted from Friday night into Saturday morning.
Interstate 780 in Benicia was closed for nearly eight hours as police searched for an armed suspect thought to have fired on police – with police returning fire. No one was believed hit.
Civilians unfortunate enough to be caught in the resultant cordon found themselves stranded for hours until officers reopened the freeway and closed their incident Saturday morning.
Things kicked off at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday after police stopped a vehicle with at least two people aboard on I-780 at Military West, the people in the car allegedly opening fire on police with officers returning fire.
Police closed off the area where the suspect vehicle had stopped and called for assistance, with agencies from all over the East Bay responding – further ensuring a gridlock condition at the scene as more police and vehicles arrived. At least two armored Bearcat police vehicles were on scene and used, issuing commands by loudspeaker and transporting armed SWAT officers into the search area.
Two suspects were taken into custody after the initial incident but a third believed to be hiding in the grassy median along the freeway could not be located, police closing the highway in both directions between the Military West exit and Southampton on ramp as a Highway Patrol helicopter orbited overhead.
At approximately 1:15 a.m. police called off their search for a third person although canine teams continued to comb the area for evidence. It was not immediately known if a weapon was recovered.
Police opened I-780 in both directions at about 4:40 a.m., re-opening the on-ramps at Military West an hour later.
What are we looking at here?
Chris: A whole lot of stalled civilian vehicles in the middle of a police action with a Bearcat armored car approaching the suspect vehicle.
Neighbor in there somewhere…. Unhappy
We’ll bet… it was a sticky one.
Yippie ki yay. Yup it sures looks like The Wild West out there. Glad no one was hurt and two out of three captured is not bad.
Firestone 11R
Throw smoke.
Break windows.
Two flash/bangs.
Repeat.
So smart to throw smoke and then flash bangs into the grassy median and then repeat. You must work for the Sheriff’s office or maybe the ex-president. Throw some bleach at it.
Glad no one hit. Lot of civilians around.
“grassy media”
Was that supposed to say “gassy media?”
lol. You may need to see an optometrist. It didn’t speak at all. It was written, indelibly: “grassy median”
Beano is not proven effective with the kind of embarrassment these two are enveloped in.
David,
You seem a bit fazed, hope all is well.
Firestone 11R