Home destroyed in standoff, owner questions police tactics
A Rutherford County man's home is set to be condemned Monday after being severely damaged in a police standoff this week.
By Ed DiOrio
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RUTHERFORDTON, North Carolina (WLOS) — On Wednesday, the U.S. Marshals Service, with help from other agencies, showed up at a home on North Meridian Street in Rutherfordton.
They were there for Jaydakis Hamilton, who was wanted on outstanding warrants from Wilmington. Hamilton was inside the home, and he wasn’t coming out. The standoff lasted more than 9 hours.
Hamilton’s mother was texting her son while it was happening.
“He said, ‘Mom, I’m not coming out. Look at them and what they’re doing,’” his mother Christina Hamilton said. “He said he’d turn himself in through me, and you take me to them, because he said he wasn’t coming out like that.”
The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office broke down the side walls of the home after deploying tear gas.
After the police went in, Hamilton was taken into custody and taken to the Rutherford County jail.
Authorities deployed 14 rounds of tear gas, broke down a wall and left a home uninhabitable. And the thing is, Jaydakis Hamilton didn’t live in the home.
The man who owns the property is now left wondering if all the damage was necessary.
“Much of it was quite gratuitous, quite unnecessary,” property owner Harold Gleaves said. “If they had to wait for a dog, they could’ve. I didn’t see any cause to smash up my house.”
“The home can be repaired, lives cannot,” Rutherfordton Town Manager Doug Barrick said. “That was our goal. All lives matter in this incident, and everybody went home safely.”
Gleaves said Hamilton was friends with his grandson. And that relationship has now cost him his home. It’s set to be condemned Monday.
“We’re trying to work with him here in the city,” Barrick said. “There is an opportunity for us to help him clean the property up in general. For us, it’s about trying to restore the neighborhood back to where it was before Wednesday’s incident.”
“This is where our family grew up,” Gleaves said. “It’s where we raised our children and grandchildren. Everything I have is here.”
Gleaves said he hopes to rebuild and one day live on the property that he’s owned for 46 years.
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