A tense standoff in a West Mobile neighborhood ended Sunday evening with a suspect in custody and the woman he is accused of abducting safe, according to Mobile police.
Officers arrested Dominique Thornton around 6 p.m. Sunday following the standoff on Loblolly Drive, off Lloyds Lane. The arrest brought a resolution to a case that police had described earlier in the day as a possible kidnapping.
According to police, Thornton assaulted Marlene French and forced her into a car earlier Sunday. The report of the attack prompted an investigation and a search for Thornton, whom officers believed could be located in the West Mobile area.
The situation escalated just before 5 p.m., when heavily armed officers and the Mobile Police Department’s SWAT team returned to the neighborhood and surrounded a house on Loblolly Drive. Crews on the scene reported that negotiators used an intercom system to communicate with someone believed to be inside, repeatedly asking the individual to exit the residence with their hands visible.
The standoff concluded without further incident when Thornton was taken into custody around 6 p.m. Standoffs involving SWAT teams and trained negotiators are relatively rare in the Mobile area, and law enforcement officials generally credit patient, methodical negotiation with helping situations like this one end without anyone being hurt.