SWAT, drones, bomb squad robot and cigarettes end five-hour York County standoff

Two people are in jail Tuesday after a five-hour standoff with York County and federal authorities Monday just outside Rock Hill.

Jamaal Deshawn Lee, 35, and Emily Rose Johns, 34, were arrested after U.S. marshals got a tip that they were in York County.

They are residents of Sun Prarie, Wis., wanted for an armed robbery out of Madison, Wis.

The standoff Monday happened in the Lesslie area, when the pair barricaded themselves into a mobile home off Catawba Church Road.

“We had a peaceful outcome to this standoff,” said Trent Faris, spokesperson for the York County Sheriff’s Office.

Catawba Church Road was closed from Springdale to Beachwood roads. The sheriff’s office later informed parents of Catawba Baptist Church day care children they could pick up their children. The children had been sheltered in place during the incident.

Negotiators and a SWAT team were used, as were drones with the sheriff’s office aviation response unit and a robot from the Rock Hill Police Department bomb squad.

Yet it was something less technical Rock Hill police brought to the negotiation — cigarettes — that helped end the standoff.

“All they asked was for a couple cigarettes,” Faris said of communication with the suspects, “and that was the key.”

Authorities arrived at about 3 p.m. It was about 8 p.m. when the man and woman “peacefully gave themselves up,” Faris said, with Lee walking out first and Johns behind him.

“They were apprehended without any incident, which is what we had hoped for for the last five hours,” Faris said.

The suspects didn’t threaten law enforcement. It was unclear, Faris said, whether the suspects were armed. No one else was in the mobile home at the time.

Authories brought out drones, the bomb squad, negotiators — “everything...to make sure this went as safe as possible,” Faris said.

“When you go into an unknown situation where somebody barricades themselves into a home like that, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, that’s when you take every precaution necessary to figure out what their intentions are, and apprehend them as safely as you can,” he said.

The two also are wanted for an armed robbery out of Minnesota, Faris said. In one of the robberies, he said, a child may have been present. No child was present Monday during the standoff.

They are being held in York County, awaiting extradition.

“It was a long five hours,” Faris said, “but it was peaceful.”

This story was originally published November 20, 2018 at 10:18 AM.