Man detained after standoff in Land Park. Sacramento police say he didn’t have gun

A man reportedly brandishing a gun inside William Land Park on Friday was subdued with less-than-lethal force and detained by police after a standoff that lasted more than an hour inside the popular Sacramento green space.

Minutes after he was placed into custody, officers said the man did not have a gun but authorities declined to say whether he had a weapon.

Officers later arrested the 35-year-old Sacramento man on suspicion of making criminal threats and resisting arrest, said Officer Anthony Gamble, a Sacramento Police Department spokesman.

The suspect was booked at the Sacramento County Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail. The criminal threats charge he faces is a felony, and the resisting arrest charge is a misdemeanor, jail records show.

The Police Department said in a 1 p.m. social media post that officers were in the area of Land Park Drive and 17th Avenue for “reports of a man with a gun” and began negotiating with the subject.

Police said the park was never evacuated and nearby businesses were not locked down.

A Bee reporter at the park at 1:30 p.m. saw dozens of police cars crowded on park roadways and grassy areas near the golf course amid a typical summer Friday surge in vehicles. Parkgoers, including adults and children, were seen calmly getting into vehicles or moving outside of police tape.

“The area where this happened is, you know, very lively this time of day,” said police spokesman Sgt. Michael Severi. “With the zoo with Funderland, Fairytale Town (and) the golf course right next to us with the park.”

Zoya Ahmed, who came to Fairytale Town with her two children and their grandmother, said that her car was behind the police tape and that she was scared of getting too close.

“This is crazy, and it’s happening more and more often,” Ahmed said.

By 2:10 p.m., officers had deployed pepper-ball rounds and “the suspect was safely taken into custody,” Severi said. When the suspect was not cooperating with officers and making threats toward them, Severi said officers brought in armored vehicles, canine officers and drones.

Severi said the man did not have a gun but had “property on him,” and said police would give further details later.

No information about the age and identity of the man was immediately available, Severi said, as officers remained at the scene Friday afternoon investigating the incident.

“We were very happy that the people who did call in called in,” he said. “Obviously, if there is someone in a park like this with a weapon, we want to know about it. We want to bring all the resources in to make sure that we could protect the public in an incident like this.”