SWAT team used in arrest

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A Seymour man is facing domestic battery charges and potentially other charges after a report of a fight Thursday morning turned into a standoff with police.

Martin Diego Juan, 32, was taken into custody after a nearly one-hour standoff that ended with the Seymour Police Department’s SWAT team entering the apartment at 1041 Katherine Court.

At 8:50 a.m., police were called after someone reported seeing an injured man carrying a knife fighting with an injured woman in the area of 950 E. Oak St.

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The man, later identified as Juan, fled the scene when police arrived, traveling to his home at Orchard Apartments on Katherine Court.

The woman involved in the incident told police she and Juan had been fighting and Juan had a “large knife,” Seymour Assistant Police Chief Craig Hayes said.

Police tried to make contact with Juan at his apartment, but he refused to answer, using an additional lock on the door to keep police out.

“We were informed that there was possibly a 4-year-old child still in the apartment with (Juan),” said Hayes, who was one of the initial officers on the scene at Katherine Court.

The decision was made at that point to involve the SWAT team, which used an interpreter and Detective Chris Franklin to try to peacefully resolve the situation.

Franklin had received training in negotiations, Hayes said, and tried to talk with Juan through the interpreter across a loudspeaker, through the door and across a throw phone, which is a phone on a cable that allows a person to talk with the police. All three methods failed to establish any dialogue between police and Juan.

After about an hour, an officer believed he had found the child in a room of the apartment separate from Juan, and the SWAT team decided to enter the building using force for the safety of the child.

“They handled it well,” Hayes said of the SWAT team. “They had good teamwork and tried every option available to resolve it peacefully before it was decided that force would be used.”

The child was uninjured during the incident and was turned over to its mother, Hayes said.

Police took Juan to Schneck Medical Center in Seymour for treatment of a head injury, which he sustained before police arrived, Hayes said. He then was transported to the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown, where he is being held pending his initial hearing. His bond had not been set as of Thursday afternoon.

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