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Retired Seattle cop arrested after five-hour standoff in Mount Vernon, Wash.

caption: The entrance to the part of the neighborhood where retired Seattle Police officer Eugene Schubeck was ultimately arrested after a crisis negotiation.
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The entrance to the part of the neighborhood where retired Seattle Police officer Eugene Schubeck was ultimately arrested after a crisis negotiation.
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A retired Seattle police officer surrendered in Mount Vernon on Tuesday morning after a five-hour standoff with police at a single-family residence there.

Eugene Louis Schubeck III, the retired Seattle officer involved in the standoff, is infamous in Seattle police circles. In 2009, Schubeck was acting as a hostage negotiator when he shot the man he was speaking with in the jaw.

The man, Nathaniel Caylor, survived but underwent multiple jaw surgeries and later received nearly $2 million as part of a settlement with the City of Seattle, a record amount at the time.

According to court records, Schubeck and another officer had gone to check on Caylor at an apartment in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood after a relative called 911, concerned that Caylor was suicidal while caring for his toddler son.

On Monday, roughly a year after retiring, Schubeck, 57, was on the other side of the crisis negotiation. At 9:26 p.m., a woman called Skagit 911 to report that her estranged husband had threatened to kill her son.

According to a statement from Lieutenant Mike Moore, of Mount Vernon Police, “a 57-year-old Mount Vernon resident had pointed a handgun at an adult male family member and threatened to kill him.”

The statement continued that Schubeck “had indicated that he was not going to be arrested and was armed with numerous other weapons available to him.”

Crisis negotiators spoke with Schubeck by phone. After five hours, Schubeck surrendered “without incident.” Several firearms were taken as evidence, according to the statement.

Schubeck was booked into the Skagit County Jail on Monday morning on two counts, including assault in the first degree, threats to kill. Mount Vernon Police investigators have asked witnesses or those with knowledge to call.

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