A Tarzana man arrested after an hourslong standoff Monday morning that brought a Canyon Country cul-de-sac to a standstill was booked on suspicion of several felony charges, according to Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station officials.
Christopher Schultz, 35, was taken into custody around noon on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and felony evading arrest, according to an email from Deputy Natalie Arriaga, spokeswoman for the SCV Sheriff’s Station.
The initial call to station officials around 6 a.m. Monday involved a report of a man with a handgun standing behind the register at the convenience store at 23055 Soledad Canyon Road, according to sheriff’s officials.
As deputies arrived at the location, the suspect entered his vehicle, a white Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, with stolen merchandise and drove off on the wrong side of the road, Arriaga wrote in an email.
Patrol deputies pursued the suspect, who led them to a vehicle pursuit that ended after the suspect crashed into a street sign and came to a stop in the 19300 block of Newhouse Street.
More than 16 patrol SUVs and three BearCats, a vehicle used by the Special Enforcement Bureau, or SWAT team, had converged on the quiet residential neighborhood by about 7:30 a.m. Deputies sealed off the street and temporarily restricted traffic on nearby Whites Canyon Road during the resulting standoff, as Schultz refused to exit the Tahoe.
SEB deputies, station officials as well as an LASD Crisis Negotiation Team that spoke with members of Schultz’s family worked for nearly six hours to bring the incident to a peaceful resolution.
Ultimately, sheriff’s deputies with the SEB team deployed a smoke grenade and tear gas into the SUV that Schultz had refused to leave, and he was taken into custody without incident.
After he was arrested, he received medical treatment at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, and was then booked at the SCV station jail.
Schultz was transferred from the local jail to the Inmate Reception Center in Downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, where he was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail as of the publication of this story, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department records available online.
LASD records indicated that Schultz is due in court in San Fernando on Wednesday morning.
Information regarding the official filing of charges by the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office was not immediately available as of the publication of this story.
