Fountain police were called out around 2:15 a.m. Saturday to the 7300 block of Village Meadows Drive after neighbors reported someone firing shots, setting off a standoff that stretched for hours before officers took a 46-year-old man into custody. No one was hurt during the operation, which prompted a temporary shelter-in-place order for nearby homes and businesses.
Police identified the man as John Martin, according to gazette.com, which reported that officers were dispatched to the scene for reports of a person firing shots in the neighborhood. Officers who arrived encountered Martin at the scene, but he allegedly refused to cooperate with law enforcement, a refusal that prompted containment measures and the response of specialized units, per the news release cited in that report.
Negotiations Stretch Into the Morning
What followed was a tense standoff that dragged on for hours. Negotiations between police and Martin continued until about 7 a.m., according to krdo.com. During that time, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office directed residents within a quarter-mile of Village Meadows Drive to secure their homes and businesses as a precaution while the situation unfolded.
When talks failed to bring a peaceful resolution, officers moved in. The station's report notes that officers executed warrants and used approved distraction and gas-deployment techniques to safely take Martin into custody, as detailed by fox21news.com. Martin was medically evaluated before being booked into the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center, that outlet reported.
Charges and the Shelter-in-Place Order Lifted
Martin was arrested on suspicion of attempted first-degree assault, disorderly conduct and several other charges, gazette.com reported. Authorities said no one was injured throughout the standoff, and once Martin was in custody, the shelter-in-place order covering the area around Village Meadows Drive was lifted, per krdo.com.
As first reported by KOAA News 5, the incident unfolded in a quiet residential pocket of Fountain, a city that saw a different kind of gunfire scare play out in its neighborhoods last year. A June 2025 report from the Colorado Springs Gazette described a separate Fountain shootout that injured two people and was later linked in court documents to an alleged botched robbery attempt, underscoring that gunfire calls in the city's residential areas have drawn scrutiny before. Details on the full scope of Martin's charges and any court proceedings had not been released as of Saturday afternoon.
