AKRON, Ohio — Akron police said one man caused a lot of chaos in the Highland Square neighborhood for several hours on Monday.
Investigators believe Thomas Blanton, 37, brutally attacked a woman before barricading himself inside a building for more than four hours.
The ordeal forced a couple from their apartment and led to the closure of Portage Path Elementary School for the day.
According to Captain Michael Miller, Blanton attacked a woman he knows around 2:40 a.m. outside of a Highland Square business on West Market Street.
The woman went to an Akron hospital, and staff reported her injuries to police, Miller said.
"The suspect punched her multiple times in the face. We're told she sustained multiple serious facial injuries," Miller said.
After the assault, Blanton entered a former barber shop on the first floor of a building on Highland Avenue, according to investigators.
Kendra Strickland, who lives on the second floor directly above the old barber shop, first heard police around 4 a.m. yelling on a megaphone that the place was surrounded and for someone named "Thomas" to come outside.
About an hour later, a SWAT team urged Strickland and her boyfriend to leave their apartment.
"The came at 5 a.m. and told us to probably leave the building because there's going to be tear gas to try to get the suspect out," Strickland said.
The couple went outside and got into a police cruiser while they listened to the drama continue to unfold.
"They had said, 'OK, we're releasing the tear gas. OK, he's down by the back door. We're gonna see if we can get a shot,'" Strickland recalled.
After trying to negotiate with the suspect for several hours, police tossed tear gas into the building and knocked down a front door.
Blanton tried to get out the back door before returning to the front door and running into the long ramming device on the police department's "community rescue vehicle," which had breached the door, Miller explained.
Miller said officers wrestled a gun away from Blanton and arrested him more than four hours after the standoff started.
"It was a very, very volatile situation in that he came out with a firearm— very easily could be a different conversation we're having," Miller said
Blanton was taken to a hospital for injuries. According to Miller, he's facing multiple charges, including felony strangulation, domestic violence and felonious assault.
The victim suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
For Strickland, the frustration continued hours after the incident was under control because she was unable to stay in her apartment.
"We can only run in briefly and then come back out because the tear gas is making us cry and cough," she said.
Police said Blanton was involved in a similar standoff with Akron police that started on New Year's Eve in 2015.
In that case, police tried to serve warrants for kidnapping, domestic violence and assault when Blanton barricaded himself inside a Seward Avenue apartment.
Nearly seven hours later— on New Year's Day— he surrendered peacefully with the help of his family, police said.
According to court records, he was sentenced to five years in prison in 2016.
Following the Monday standoff in Highland Square, Strickland said she's grateful things didn't end even worse.
"They kept us safe, and so we thank them, but it's still not a great way to start off the week," Strickland said.
