Distraught man killed during standoff with police over grenade

The Kansas City Star ^ | Sunday, July 13, 2003 | LEE HILL KAVANAUGH and LYNN HORSLEY

[TroutStalker]

A 26-year-old Kansas City man, distraught over problems with his girlfriend, died after threatening to blow up himself and police officers with a grenade early Saturday.

After police negotiators spent hours outside a duplex in the 8700 block of North Chatham Avenue trying to persuade Chad Seymour to surrender, an officer shot him when he charged at them. Seymour then fell on top of the live grenade.

Police sent in a robotic device to retrieve the grenade, fearing it might detonate.

It did.

"I've been on the force for 13 years, and we've never encountered that before," said Capt. Rich Lockhart, a Kansas City police spokesman. "The force of that blast shook the police car I was sitting in."

The situation began when police arrived about 11:20 p.m. Friday, responding to a domestic disturbance call in the neighborhood of duplexes in Kansas City, North.

Lockhart said Seymour ran into the back yard. He held up a grenade and threatened to detonate it. Officers retreated and called in tactical officers and negotiators. Other officers began evacuating residents or notifying them to stay indoors. Seymour's girlfriend and his parents were taken from the area to a parking lot at a nearby shopping center.

Police talked with Seymour until 3:29 a.m., when the negotiations failed and he charged them.

Lockhart said police think Seymour was killed with one shot, but an autopsy this week will determine whether the shot was fatal or whether he died from the blast of the grenade.

Seymour fell on top of the grenade with his right arm beneath him, which kept the grenade from firing until the robot rolled his body off it.

Seymour had claimed that he had two grenades. That prompted police to scour the area for hours, checking vehicles, the duplex, yards, bushes, even rooftops. Bomb squads sifted the dirt and debris for evidence from the grenade. They found no evidence of a second grenade.

"We don't know yet if this was a homemade grenade or if it was military grade," Lockhart said. "We want to know how large it was."

The area where the police negotiated with Seymour was an unfenced section of yards that surrounds about six duplexes. Within sight of the scene was one home where six teenage girls were holding a sleepover.

"When we first saw them, we told our dad. But he didn't believe us when we told him the SWAT team was here," said Rachel Woodford, 15. "Then the police knocked on our door."

Rachel said she and her friends stayed up all night listening to the negotiations.

"They were saying, `Put your hands up! Show me your weapon!' " she said.

None of the girls knew Seymour or his girlfriend.

"Some of us screamed when we heard the gunshots," Rachel said.

"This was so weird. And scary. I cried when the grenade went off."

Saturday afternoon, all that was left at the scene was a pile of dirt about two feet across and charred debris.

Detective Craig Hubbell of the police bomb squad unit said the $150,000 mechanical robot, called Bob, probably saved at least one police officer's life.

"Without the robot, one of us would have had to draw straws to see who would go in and get that grenade." Hubbell said.

The bomb blew off the robot's retrieval claw, its arm and a remote camera. Hubbell estimated the damage at $50,000.

"This piece of equipment is priceless, if you ask me," he said.

To reach Lee Hill Kavanaugh, call (816) 234-4420 or send e-mail to lkavanaugh@kcstar.com.

To reach Lynn Horsley, call (816) 234-4317 or send e-mail to lhorsley@kcstar.com.

[U S Army EOD]

A lesson which goes to show you, a lot of this remote equipment the bomb squads have got doesn't work very well. In a situation like this is when you earn the hazzardous duty pay. You just go in and take care of things personally.

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[zip]

$50,000 for a human life. Hell of a tradeoff. Worth every penny.

[Jim Cane]

In a situation like this is when you earn the hazzardous duty pay. You just go in and take care of things personally.

Read the article. They used the robot to get the grenade not a cop. Dead robot = oh well. Live cop = good.

[Jhoffa_]

"Without the robot, one of us would have had to draw straws to see who would go in and get that grenade." Hubbell said.

Oh whatever..

Next time, just call me.. I would have done it for the cost of a piece of rope.

[strela]

I'd like to know where in the heck he managed to get ahold of a live grenade. Its not like you can buy them on EBay.

[Cultural Jihad]

Supposedly if it is shown that the perp was a member of a racist militia, then we can expect a handful of cop-hating professional malcontents to show up and question the police motives and actions.

Was he setup using a nefarious brain wave transmission device? Did the County Commissioner of Parks and Recreation covet his duplex or his girlfriend or his dog? Was his beer mug cleverly switched with the live grenade by gubermint agents as he slept? Did they use CrazyGlue on it so he wouldn't be able to get away from it? Was his girlfriend a relative of anyone in city hall? Who called the police in the first place? Was someone on the SWAT team listed as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy? Were the officers correctly sworn in to uphold the law? And why spend four hours looking for some alleged second hand grenade which (surprise!) was never found? Possibly to cover their tracks and destroy evidence of their own malfeasance? These are the sorts of questions they would raise, in a desire to get to the truth, of course.

[Cultural Jihad]

Next time, just call me.. I would have done it for the cost of a piece of rope.

Brave fellow! Would you get to pocket the cost difference? ;-)

[Jhoffa_]

LOL!

I admit, it would be nice..

I just had a mental image of tying it to a rebar grappling hook and rolling the guy over with it. hate to waste a hundred & fifty thousand dollar robot on this guy and hyjinks.

That's not to say that it's not worth it if there's no options though.

Money can be replaced.. people can't.

Long as no one was hurt that didn't deserve to be hurt then it can be called a success, regardless.

[Catspaw]

Was he setup using a nefarious brain wave transmission device? Did the County Commissioner of Parks and Recreation covet his duplex or his girlfriend or his dog? Was his beer mug cleverly switched with the live grenade by gubermint agents as he slept? Did they use CrazyGlue on it so he wouldn't be able to get away from it? Was his girlfriend a relative of anyone in city hall? Who called the police in the first place? Was someone on the SWAT team listed as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy? Were the officers correctly sworn in to uphold the law? And why spend four hours looking for some alleged second hand grenade which (surprise!) was never found? Possibly to cover their tracks and destroy evidence of their own malfeasance? These are the sorts of questions they would raise, in a desire to get to the truth, of course.

Most importantly, was he a sovereign citizen? Did he object to having his name spelled in ALL CAPS in the criminal complaint? Did he demand his name be spelled with a variety of the following: ;;; ::: ,,,, in any combination?

And, of course, DID THEY HAVE A TAPE? DID THEY RELEASE IT TO THE PUBLIC? AND IF NOT, WHY NOT?

[Catspaw]

Money can be replaced.. people can't.

Bingo.

The robot can be repaired and put back into use for the next nutball who does something stupid.

[Jhoffa_]

The robot can be repaired and put back into use for the next nutball who does something stupid.

I completely agree..

I just think it could have been done a lot cheaper.

But, it's still a success, regardless.

[Catspaw]

I just think it could have been done a lot cheaper.

Cost to repair robot: $50,000

Cost of a human life?

Sorry--I'm going with the robot on this one. You cannot put a price on human life.

[U S Army EOD]

I read the article and have personally retrieved many grenades which were live and by the way didn't go off. A lot of the things that we worked on "up close where you would get an ear burst if you screwed up" would have detonated if you tried something remote.

There is to much reliance on remote operations that don't work as good as a person getting in there a doing the job. I was in on the development of the so called "wheelbarrow" which is what it was originally called. It was a three wheeled device that now has tracks. There are some good uses for it but retrieving a grenade is not one of them. If this guy who died still had his fingers on the ring of the pin, there is no way a remote machine could have gotten it loose.

I have personally worked on several hundred explosive devices and still have all ten fingers and both feet.

In this incident, had the bomb disposal policeman known what he was doing, he would still be alive and the grenade would not have gone. Grenades just aren't that difficult.

[Jhoffa_]

No, no.. It's not an either/or proposition..

Ask yourself: "Can a robot strong enough to push a man over carry a grappling hook?"

[Houmatt]

Suicide by cop. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Cultural Jihad]

In this incident, had the bomb disposal policeman known what he was doing, he would still be alive and the grenade would not have gone.

Did you misread the article? The bomb disposal policeman is still alive. Great job you did, by the way! Did you wear that t-shirt which says "If you see me running, run, too!"?

[U S Army EOD]

If you have enough conidence in your experience, training, and abilities the grenade will not go off when you retrieve it. You just got to convince yourself that you are smarter than the grenade.

I've done a bunch of them personally to include a few off of bodies. Most of the ones I did could not have been done successfully remotely.

[U S Army EOD]

No I don't wear the silly T-shirt. The mission failed.