Exclusive: Upstairs neighbor recounts experience during police standoff
Published 4:16 pm Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Stephanie Laskewitz, who lives in the second-floor duplex of a home involved in a standoff, exits the home on Eighth Street Northwest in Austin. — Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
‘It was something like you would see out of an action movie’
More: Police now inside the home; three arrested
Stephanie Laskewitz feels a little like she experienced a scene out of a movie Tuesday morning.
A man exits a home on Eighth Street Northwest in Austin, the site of a standoff with Austin police. — Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
Laskewitz and her boyfriend were in their second-floor duplex on the 1100 block of Eighth St. NW Tuesday around 9:30 a.m. when she got a call from the police. She was sleeping and the call woke up her.
“I noticed there were cops already outside my house,” she said. “I started freaking out a little bit.”
At first, Laskewitz thought she was in trouble, but the female officer on the phone said there was a standoff in the downstairs apartment. The officer instructed the two to leave one at a time and immediately put their hands up when they were outside.
Laskewitz was told to go first, and immediately saw several cops with guns drawn. They instructed her to hurry down her steps.
“It was so scary,” Laskewitz said. “It was something like you would see out of an action movie. I never thought it would be outside my house.”
Once outside, the police frisked the two and let them sit in a police car before they were questioned. The two were not involved in the incident downstairs, and Laskewitz said she didn’t not know what was going on until the police called. The standoff has resulted in at least three arrests, and police are now inside the home looking for at least one other suspect.
Laskewitz went to her mother’s house Tuesday afternoon, but she didn’t know when she and her boyfriend, who was at work through Tuesday evening, would be able to return home.
