The Willow Glen Resident

Man with crossbow ignites a four-hour Glen standoff

By Rebecca Wallace

For almost four hours on March 25, while a man holed up in a brown pickup truck with a loaded crossbow held police at bay, it was as though a movie were being shot at the edge of Willow Glen.

SWAT team members in camouflage uniforms huddled behind a wall as a news helicopter buzzed overhead and a knot of neighbors gawked from a safely distant street. Fortunately, no one got shot or skewered with an arrow, and the man, 40-year-old Ranato McCowan of San Jose, was eventually coaxed out of his truck with tear gas and arrested, police said.

The incident began at about 9:45 a.m. when McCowan arrived late for class at the Alert Driving School at 3150 Almaden Expressway and became upset because he was not admitted, said San Jose Police Sgt. Chris Moore.

McCowan then barricaded himself in his pickup truck in the parking lot of the school and refused to respond to pleas to surrender, Moore said. Police kept him from driving away by parking an empty car behind the truck.

Traffic in the area was diverted and often tangled, and police asked nearby people to remain inside. "Those are not to be fooled with," Moore said of crossbows.

On Foxworthy Avenue, neighbors gathered behind a police line to watch for movement around the distant pickup truck. One sat on an overturned recycling bin, while another peered through World War II-era binoculars.

Officers first tried to get McCowan out of the pickup truck by spraying pepper spray inside, "but that didn't seem to affect him," Moore said. At about 1:30 p.m., officers threw tear-gas canisters into the truck, and McCowan was seen jumping out of the window and onto the ground. Several officers immediately threw themselves on top of him.

McCowan was taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for psychiatric observation and booked into Santa Clara County Jail on suspicion of making terrorist threats, a felony offense.

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