Neighbor sheds light on SWAT standoff in Palm Springs
A SWAT standoff Saturday put a neighborhood in Palm Springs on edge as officers responded disturbance call. A nearby neighbor who was there at the scene and sheds some light on events leading up to the standoff.
“You don’t think something like this is going to happen in Palm Springs. It’s a really quiet street,” Daniel Iannotte, a neighbor, said.
A street that wasn’t so quiet due to a swat standoff Saturday shutting down traffic on W Dominguez Rd. with multiple officers responding. It kept neighbors like Iannotte inside their homes. He says the man Palm Springs Police were trying to arrest, 35 year old James Hardwick had confronted neighbors before with threats and homophobic comments.
“Just only a couple days before he was making death threats like ‘I will kill you’, ‘I will murder you’….it was situation that needed to be resolved,” Iannotte said.
Iannotte has lived in the Racquet Club West neighborhood for over a year, and says he’s familiar with Hardwick’s behavior.
“He was I guess a vet from Iraq I suppose and just seems to have a serious case of PTSD,” he said.
Hardwick is accused of assaulting another person with a deadly weapon causing police to be called- creating a SWAT standoff when he refused to leave the house and police received reports of possible explosive devices inside.. He eventually surrendered to SWAT officers. Iannotte says he’s glad it ended peacefully and wants to see his neighbor get help.
“He served our country and it doesn’t look like our country is looking out for him. He needs therapy. He needs help,” he said.
Help that Iannotte hopes will keep his street from seeing this scene again.
Hardwick is currently in custody facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon and making criminal threats, according to Palm Springs Police.
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