Montrose - Daily Press

GUNNISON — The Gunnison Police Department rushed from one urgent call to the next March 4, responding first to an apparent suicide by potassium cyanide that triggered evacuations.

Officers from the GPD and numerous other agencies were still working the scene when they were called to reports of an armed man holed up inside the Lutheran church. The apparently suicidal male there had to be subdued with a Taser.

Gunnison Police Chief Greg Anderson said his agency responded to the suicide at around 5 p.m. March 4, after the victim’s former roommate discovered the death in a townhome complex on West Denver Street.

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Anderson could not release the victim’s name because the investigation was ongoing, but said it was a man in his 20s. The GPD is still trying to determine how the decedent obtained the potassium cyanide thought to have killed him.

Gunnison County Coroner Frank Vader did not immediately return phone calls Monday afternoon to confirm cause of death.

Police indicated the risk to the public during the March 4 incident was significant, because potassium cyanide can vaporize into an aerosol form that anyone can breathe in. Potassium cyanide can quickly kill a human being, depending on the potency of its solution.

Before police were able to establish the presence of cyanide, five officers and four civilians had entered the dead man’s townhome.

“We immediately withdrew all our officers from the scene,” Anderson said.

The officers and the four civilians were treated by emergency medical services responders at the scene and taken to the Gunnison Valley hospital. There, according to Anderson, all nine were monitored for symptoms of cyanide poisoning for the next eight hours, he said, and checked out OK.

The effects of cyanide inhalation don’t necessarily surface right away, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site. Symptoms include headache, dizziness, confusion, nausea, shortness of breath, convulsions, vomiting and irregular heartbeat.

Three families from nearby townhomes were evacuated while the Gunnison Fire Department’s hazardous materials response team contained the suicide victim’s townhome.

“We were very concerned that if it aerosol-ized, it could have required a bigger hazmat response,” Anderson said. “Fortunately, we were able to determine it was a 10 percent solution of potassium cyanide, which is less hazardous than if it had been a 100 percent solution.”

The townhome complex’s residents were allowed to return at around 9 p.m., but the unit where the man died was sealed under the authority of the public health department.

Anderson said the home must be decontaminated and by law, the complex owner could be responsible for the associated costs.

Gunnison Police Department relied on the help of other agencies, including hazmat, fire, EMS, state patrol and the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office.

“We’re a small, little department,” Anderson said. “We don’t have a lot of resources. It definitely strained our resources.”

But the day was far from over for GPD officers. Just when the suicide victim’s neighbors were being given the all-clear to return home, word came of another man, who was in the Lutheran church on Main Street with a gun.

“We had received information earlier in the evening this subject was driving around town in a vehicle, armed with a 9 mm handgun and threatening suicide,” Anderson said.

The middle-aged man apparently called dispatch himself once he was inside the church, but when police and other agencies arrived, he reportedly refused to do what he was told.

“They were trying to make contact with him,” Anderson said. “He was given a command to stop and he ran back inside the church.

“They couldn’t tell if the subject was going back in to grab his gun. We just didn’t know what he was doing.”

Officers made the decision to tase the man because of safety concerns, and within the parameters of departmental rules for employing force, Anderson said. The goal is to use the most minimal amount of force necessary to control a scene.

The man did not comply after first being tased, the chief added. “He continued to wrestle around with the officers. We had to initiate the device again. He decided he was going to give up then.”

The police department does not plan to seek charges against the man, who was then taken to the hospital for a mental health assessment.

“We felt the greater public good here was to get this man some help,” Anderson said.

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