Date posted online: Saturday, March 25, 2006
Subject of 22-hour 'standoff' says police handled it wrong
By Michele Linck Journal staff reporter
Walter "Mike" Thurber, the man whose home Sioux City police surrounded during a 22-hour standoff on Feb. 21-22, says the whole incident was "overkill" and much more expensive than it needed to be.
Thurber, who admitted to being "awfully depressed" at the time, said he was just exercising his right to privacy and his right not to answer his door.
He spoke to the Journal Friday at the Mental Health Institute in Cherokee, Iowa, where he is receiving therapy after being sent there by the court following the incident. Dressed in a plaid shirt and bluejeans, the articulate 39-year-old declined to be photographed.
He craves anonymity, but said he wants the public to know his side of the "standoff" story. He said he was rankled by Police Chief Joe Frisbie's "giving everybody attaboys" for the way the standoff was handled.
"I prefer to call it a siege rather than a standoff," he said. "I was in my home minding my business. How is that a standoff?
"They destroyed my house. I don't know a window in the house that they didn't shoot out with (tear gas) grenades, even little tiny decorative windows." He said a police negotiator told him they would take care of the damage, but he doesn't know if the house, at 3806 W. Fourth St., has been boarded up yet.
He said that after awhile during the "siege," he was so overstimulated by everything that he's not sure if he was asleep when a loud flash-bang device designed to wake him up was detonated. He said he put a wet towel over his head to cope with the tear gas, which left a powdery coating throughout the house; even the water tasted of it.
Knowing that Thurber owned firearms, the police department, its Strategic Emergency Response Team, hostage negotiations team, and a mobile command center -- and later a replacement team from the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office and a tactical robot from Des Moines -- turned out to persuade Thurber to come out of his house and talk to them, hoping to keep him from harming himself, or them.
Thurber said they also made all outgoing calls from his cell phone to ring to their negotiators. He said he might have felt better if he could have called his girlfriend, Teri, or his father in Washington. They offered to get them on the line, but he said he felt that violated his privacy.
"I'm a single person in the house," Thurber said Friday. "No hostages, no threats against anybody and they bring out everything short of the National Guard. They know me. There have been welfare checks at the home before. It's never taken a SWAT team, tactical robot and two command centers to get me out of the house.
"It's almost like a war game," he said. "These guys have full (tactical) uniforms, Kevlar helmets and machine guns. What kind of firepower is that for a guy who says, no, I'm scared. I'm not coming out of my house?
"It was just unbelievable to me," he said. "At no point did they just offer to have a guy not in full battle dress to come to the door and just talk to me." He said he would have understood the "siege" if he had a hostage or was being aggressive. "But I was just sitting in my room dodging grenades.
"If I was truly going to commit suicide, wouldn't that aggravate the situation to the point I'd be more likely to do something like that?"
As for the concern over his gun cache, which turned out to be "at least two rifles" according to police, Thurber said, "This is the Midwest. Everybody has guns." He said he likes to work on guns and target shoot. He said the only things he's ever shot are a squirrel and a pheasant. He said a gun that authorities removed from his house after a welfare check a year earlier was not a true AK-47, but a .22-caliber rifle made to look like an assault rifle.
"I wouldn't have done anything violent. I have never done anything violent," Thurber said.
"They could have handled it a lot less expensive," Thurber said, noting Frisbie was quoted saying the standoff cost the city up to $700 an hour. "If they needed to wait it out," he said, "a couple of patrol cars could've done that."
Thurber said the whole thing started when he called his younger sister, who lives near Los Angeles. "I had run out of money, unemployed. I was just to a bad point," he said. "I was feeling awfully depressed. I probably did upset my sister. She didn't even call me back to say, hey, Mike, calm down. It's not that bad."
Instead, concerned about his well-being, she called the Sioux City police.
Police said after the standoff that no crime occurred. However, he was committed for mental health care. He is allowed visits from his Sioux City girlfriend, Teri, whom he says he loves dearly, and is not restricted in his movements about the institute. He is hoping to be sent to a small residential facility soon where he can work on putting his life together rather than on his mental health issues.
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Subject of 22-hour 'standoff' says police handled it wrong
By Michele Linck Journal staff reporter
Walter "Mike" Thurber, the man whose home Sioux City police surrounded during a 22-hour standoff on Feb. 21-22, says the whole incident was "overkill" and much more expensive than it needed to be.
Thurber, who admitted to being "awfully depressed" at the time, said he was just exercising his right to privacy and his right not to answer his door.
He spoke to the Journal Friday at the Mental Health Institute in Cherokee, Iowa, where he is receiving therapy after being sent there by the court following the incident. Dressed in a plaid shirt and bluejeans, the articulate 39-year-old declined to be photographed.
He craves anonymity, but said he wants the public to know his side of the "standoff" story. He said he was rankled by Police Chief Joe Frisbie's "giving everybody attaboys" for the way the standoff was handled.
"I prefer to call it a siege rather than a standoff," he said. "I was in my home minding my business. How is that a standoff?
"They destroyed my house. I don't know a window in the house that they didn't shoot out with (tear gas) grenades, even little tiny decorative windows." He said a police negotiator told him they would take care of the damage, but he doesn't know if the house, at 3806 W. Fourth St., has been boarded up yet.
He said that after awhile during the "siege," he was so overstimulated by everything that he's not sure if he was asleep when a loud flash-bang device designed to wake him up was detonated. He said he put a wet towel over his head to cope with the tear gas, which left a powdery coating throughout the house; even the water tasted of it.
Knowing that Thurber owned firearms, the police department, its Strategic Emergency Response Team, hostage negotiations team, and a mobile command center -- and later a replacement team from the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office and a tactical robot from Des Moines -- turned out to persuade Thurber to come out of his house and talk to them, hoping to keep him from harming himself, or them.
Thurber said they also made all outgoing calls from his cell phone to ring to their negotiators. He said he might have felt better if he could have called his girlfriend, Teri, or his father in Washington. They offered to get them on the line, but he said he felt that violated his privacy.
"I'm a single person in the house," Thurber said Friday. "No hostages, no threats against anybody and they bring out everything short of the National Guard. They know me. There have been welfare checks at the home before. It's never taken a SWAT team, tactical robot and two command centers to get me out of the house.
"It's almost like a war game," he said. "These guys have full (tactical) uniforms, Kevlar helmets and machine guns. What kind of firepower is that for a guy who says, no, I'm scared. I'm not coming out of my house?
"It was just unbelievable to me," he said. "At no point did they just offer to have a guy not in full battle dress to come to the door and just talk to me." He said he would have understood the "siege" if he had a hostage or was being aggressive. "But I was just sitting in my room dodging grenades.
"If I was truly going to commit suicide, wouldn't that aggravate the situation to the point I'd be more likely to do something like that?"
As for the concern over his gun cache, which turned out to be "at least two rifles" according to police, Thurber said, "This is the Midwest. Everybody has guns." He said he likes to work on guns and target shoot. He said the only things he's ever shot are a squirrel and a pheasant. He said a gun that authorities removed from his house after a welfare check a year earlier was not a true AK-47, but a .22-caliber rifle made to look like an assault rifle.
"I wouldn't have done anything violent. I have never done anything violent," Thurber said.
"They could have handled it a lot less expensive," Thurber said, noting Frisbie was quoted saying the standoff cost the city up to $700 an hour. "If they needed to wait it out," he said, "a couple of patrol cars could've done that."
Thurber said the whole thing started when he called his younger sister, who lives near Los Angeles. "I had run out of money, unemployed. I was just to a bad point," he said. "I was feeling awfully depressed. I probably did upset my sister. She didn't even call me back to say, hey, Mike, calm down. It's not that bad."
Instead, concerned about his well-being, she called the Sioux City police.
Police said after the standoff that no crime occurred. However, he was committed for mental health care. He is allowed visits from his Sioux City girlfriend, Teri, whom he says he loves dearly, and is not restricted in his movements about the institute. He is hoping to be sent to a small residential facility soon where he can work on putting his life together rather than on his mental health issues.
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