LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — A man was arrested after a lengthy standoff with Lancaster County deputies in Indian Land early Tuesday, investigators said.
The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office responded to a domestic incident at a home on Dobys Bridge Road around 2 p.m. on Labor Day. When deputies arrived, they learned the suspect, 38-year-old Jeffrey Dale Kitchen, got into an argument with his girlfriend and hit her several times in the back. The woman then called her daughter to pick her up from the house. By the time deputies arrived, Kitchen locked himself in his bedroom and refused to come out.
During the standoff, deputies allege that Kitchen made threats to harm responding officers. Deputies were told that Kitchen owned knives, swords and a shotgun but weren't sure if he had any weapons. As deputies worked to get him to come out, Kitchens allegedly fired a shotgun through the wall into the hallway where deputies were standing. Neither deputy was hurt by the shot.
When negotiations to get Kitchen to surrender peacefully were unsuccessful, South Carolina state investigators broke down the bedroom door; however, Kitchen was no longer in the room and had crawled into the attic from an access door in the bedroom. Deputies deployed chemicals to force Kitchen out of the attic and he surrendered peacefully around 11 p.m.
“Calls like this are fluid and often stretch into hours like this one did,” Sheriff Barry Faile said. "We use our training and experience to make tactical plans, and sometimes those plans change as the circumstances change. We took our time and carefully and continuously evaluated the facts and were ultimately able to choose an effective tactic that brought this incident to an end with no serious injuries to anybody, including the suspect.”
Kitchen was evaluated at a nearby hospital and hasn't been booked into jail. He's facing charges of third-degree domestic violence, attempted murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime and threatening the life of a public official.
Deputies stayed at the house overnight and crime scene investigators returned Tuesday morning to collect evidence related to the standoff.