Constable: Suspect in standoff was unarmed

By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com

(Photo by Edward Cruz) Law enforcement authorities from various agencies converged at a local hotel in San Benito on Tuesday where a man reportedly barricaded himself and allegedly threatened to shoot police.

(Photo by Edward Cruz)
Law enforcement authorities from various agencies converged at a local hotel in San Benito on Tuesday where a man reportedly barricaded himself and allegedly threatened to shoot police.

Authorities confirmed on Friday that the man accused of threatening to shoot police officers at a San Benito motel was not armed.

The incident occurred around noon on Tuesday, Aug. 26, when deputies with the Precinct 5 Cameron County Constable’s Office – accompanied by Pct. 3 Constable’s deputies – attempted to execute an arrest warrant on Harlingen resident Joseph Paul Vargas, 34, at the Super 8 motel in San Benito. It was at that point when Vargas, who police said barricaded himself in his motel room, allegedly threatened to shoot the deputies.

A near seven-hour standoff ensued in which law enforcement authorities from the San Benito Police Department, the San Benito CISD Police Department, the Pct. 3 and 5 Constable’s offices as well as the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Border Patrol converged at the scene and deployed Special Weapons and Tactics units, armored vehicles and a helicopter.

The standoff ended when a SWAT team fired tear gas into the motel room and apprehended Vargas, who SBPD Operations Chief Martin Morales Jr. said was found hiding in the bathroom. “He had stuffed towels between the door and the floor to try to stop the tear gas from going inside the bathroom,” Morales said.

According to Morales, the SWAT team took action – thus after hours of negotiations – after authorities on the scene heard “loud noises.” Morales added, “We were afraid that he had maybe shot himself.”

Pct. 5 Constable Cesar R. Diaz then reported that a search of the motel room yielded no weapon found.

“After searching the room, there was no gun found in the motel,” Diaz said. “But he (Vargas) did make the threat to the deputies.”

Vargas has since been charged with felony theft, which stems from the original arrest warrant that deputies attempted to execute; terroristic threat and terroristic threat on a public servant – all filed by the Pct. 5 Constable’s office.

Diaz said Vargas was also charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, for damages sustained to the motel room.

Morales said, “When we got in there, we saw that he had trashed the place. There were holes in the wall and furniture was broken.”

Other charges that Vargas, who is currently incarcerated at Cameron County Jail, faces include: resisting arrest, evading arrest, possession of a dangerous drug and failure to identify – all out of the Sheriff’s Department.

 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.sbnewspaper.com/2014/08/30/constable-suspect-in-standoff-was-unarmed/

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