Menu
I-84 standoff ends dramatically with suspect in custody
A six-hour standoff last week at milepost 93 on I-84 ended dramatically shortly after 11:40 p.m. Tuesday evening when an armed suspect who had led authorities on a chase from Boise was finally taken into custody.
Jarrod L. Devaney, 31, of Meridian, was charged with felony eluding police, felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor resisting and obstructing officers after being returned to Ada County following his arrest early Wednesday. He also was being held on an outstanding felony grand theft warrant.
More than 40 officers from the Boise Police Department, Mountain Home Police Department, Ada County Sheriff's Office, Elmore County Sheriff's Office and the Idaho State Police were directly involved in dealing with the case.
The incident began at about 5:20 p.m. last Tuesday when Boise Police spotted Devaney in his vehicle, a red Chevy Tahoe, in the vicinity of Broadway and Linden streets in Boise, and attempted to arrest him on a warrant for felony grand theft. He had been accused of stealing items, including firearms, from family members.
But Devaney didn't stop, instead accelerating south on Broadway until he got on the eastbound lane of I-84 headed toward Mountain Home. Officers who gave pursuit saw him waving what appeared to be a handgun in his SUV and during the chase he called Boise dispatchers several times and threatened to use the gun to harm himself or the officers.
The chase speeds varied widely, from very low speeds up to 90-100 mph. Although it is unusual for Boise Police to leave their jurisdiction, they were in the process of turning over the pursuit to Elmore County authorities and Idaho State Police when Devaney suddenly stopped.
During the chase, Boise PD activated its hostage negotiation team, considered to be one of the best in the country, and began trying from its offices in Boise to talk to Devaney on his cell phone. That team would play a crucial role over the next six hours in keeping the incident from escalating, and may have been responsible for convincing him to pull over on the side of the road at milepost 93 on I-84, near the Mountain Home golf course.
One of the Boise officers who had attempted to arrest Devaney in Boise, and had followed him in pursuit, was also a member of the Boise PD SWAT team, and another Boise police officer who arrived on the scene, Lt. Dan Adams, eventually called for three Boise SWAT team members to join the group of officers from the various responding jurisdictions who had surrounded DeVaney's vehicle.
Clarity of command is always important in a multi-jurisdictional response to such an incident, and Elmore County Sheriff Rick Layher said that because of the large presence of Boise police officers already at the scene, the fact the negotiating team was part of the Boise PD, and because a Boise PD SWAT team had been called in, he decided to name Adams the incident commander.
Layher, meanwhile, called the Idaho Transportation Department to start blocking traffic on the interstate. The eastbound lanes of Interstate 84 between milepost 90.5 (later at Exit 90) and Exit 95 were quickly blocked off, but due to IDT manpower shortages, Layher explained, it took nearly two hours for the westbound lane to be blocked, with vehicles passing by within 50 yards of the site where more than a dozen officers had weapons trained on Devaney's vehicle.
Traffic began to back up in both directions for miles, and at one point there was a report of several frustrated truckers getting into a fistfight, as well as at least one medical emergency in the stalled traffic.
Meanwhile, negotiators continued to talk to Devaney in an effort to calm him down and end the confrontation peacefully. On several occasions negotiators thought they had talked him into ending the confrontation, but he wavered back and forth several times, concerned about possibly going back to prison and other issues. Several times he opened his car door to get out, only to close it and begin the negotiations all over again.
Meanwhile, as negotiators talked to him, other officers prepared potential tactics, from blocking the road to possibly ramming his vehicle to using spike strips if he tried to drive away.
Officers were concerned that he might attempt what they referred to as "suicide by cop," taking actions that would pose a threat to law enforcement officers or civilians that would result in officers having to use deadly force to stop him.
But to the relief of officers, that didn't happen, even though on several occasions he appeared to be "testing" officers and attempting to provoke a response.
But after six hours of negotiations, Devaney told authorities that "one way or the other" the standoff would be over in five minutes, and indicated he was waiting for police officers to "make their move" so he would have justification for his subsequent actions.
At that point, authorities decided the talks had failed and decided to make their move.
Two 37mm tear gas grenades were fired into Devaney's vehicle. He immediately took off, but prepositioned tire spikes further down the road tore his tires up and a Boise police officer, training in Pursuit Intervention Techniques (PIT), used his vehicle to spin Devaney's vehicle around at milepost 96.
Layher said officers could see Devaney waving his gun, but he appeared to hit it on something in the car and dropped it. As he pawed on the floor of the tear-gas-filled car attempting to find it, officers pulled him from the vehicle and placed him under arrest.
Neither any officers nor the suspect were injured
After taking him into custody police discovered that the weapon Devaney had displayed was actually a BB gun made to look like a real handgun. Because he pointed the weapon at police as they approached his vehicle, he was charged with aggravated assault.
"I'm just happy it turned out the way it did," said Sheriff Layher. "In the end, nobody got hurt, and that's worth all the time that it took to resolve this."
Layher praised all the law enforcement agencies who responded for their cooperation, as did the Boise Police Department.