Shelton residents woke up Wednesday to a stretch of Walnut Street cordoned off as the Mason County Sheriff's Office SWAT team responded to a barricaded person just before 6 a.m. The closure, at Fogerty Street, forced drivers to find other routes while deputies worked to resolve the standoff.
The sheriff's office said in a Wednesday Facebook post that its SWAT team had responded to the situation, according to KOMO News. The suspect was barricaded in the area of Walnut Street, per the Mason County Sheriff's Office, as reported by FOX 13 Seattle, which credited the announcement to a 5:55 a.m. social media post.
Street Closed, Cause Still Unclear
Walnut Street was blocked at Fogerty Street while law enforcement handled the situation, officials said. What led up to the standoff was not yet known, according to the same report. Authorities asked people to avoid the area, take other routes, and give emergency crews space to work while the investigation remained ongoing.
Not the First Standoff for County SWAT
Mason County's regional SWAT team has handled barricade situations before. In a separate domestic-violence case earlier this year in the Lake Kokanee area, a woman armed herself with a hatchet and barricaded inside a travel trailer, according to a report from Mason County. In that incident, the regional SWAT team deployed chemical munitions and, through less-lethal force, took the woman into custody with minimal injury, the report noted.
No arrests, injuries, or further details about the person involved in Wednesday's Shelton standoff have been released, and it remains unclear when Walnut Street reopened to traffic. The investigation into what prompted the barricade situation continues.
