By KIRBY ROSS
Phillips County Review
PHILLIPSBURG — Not only is criminal history repeating itself in Phillipsburg, it has just managed to circle around and double up right here in Riverless City on Friday night.
And, irony of ironies, it happened mere hours after the state’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, made an unannounced private governor’s campaign visit to Phillipsburg.
Last week, a major incident involving methamphetamine and a 20-month-old baby transpired in the 1200 block of Cable Road in northwest Phillipsburg.
And just over five months ago, a major incident involving guns, a barricaded suspect, a Kansas Highway Patrol SWAT Team, and a Lenco BearCat Armored Vehicle unfolded in northeast Phillipsburg.
Now, with history repeating itself and seemingly merging multiple recent past incidents into one brand new one, on the night of Oct. 28 guns, a barricaded suspect, a KHP SWAT Team and two BearCat Armored Vehicles faced off at 1200 Cable Road in northwest Phillipsburg.
1200 Cable Road, Phillipsburg, Kansas
In Phillips County, law enforcement parlance that address also generally means Harvest Wood Apartments, the scene of multiple incidents and multiple arrests, including not just the one Friday night, and the one involving the baby the week before that, but many others for past multiple years.
The latest incident unfolded at suppertime on Friday, when two Phillips County deputy sheriffs approached the apartment in question in response to a suspicious person report received by Phillips County dispatch.
As the deputies attempted to make contact with the man in question, after identified as Russell Scott Hosier, 62, Phillipsburg, they knocked on his door. As soon as they did so, a shotgun blast blew out the front picture window just inches away from them.
Reporting “shots fired,” the deputies took cover and called for back up. As that back up began arriving, a perimenter was set up in the area and efforts were initiated to make contact with Hosier, with the only response reportedly being multiple additional shotgun blasts being made through the front window.
With their training taking over — meaning do not fire blindly into a structure that has thin walls and neighbors, or has a number of unknowns including the possibility of the presence of innocent hostages with the perpetrator — the sheriff’s officers maintained strict weapons discipline in the heavily populated residential complex, and at no time did they return fire.
With the continuous gunfire coming from the apartment, a decision was then made to clear the entire complex of all residents. Once that process began it became a tricky proposition at times with shotgun blasts continuing to come from the residence resulting in law enforcement officers and civilians having to hit the ground.
With the hail of gunfire failing to subside, the Kansas Highway Patrol was called in, with it later being reported that “numerous troopers responded.”
In addition to local on-duty KHP reinforcements, the KHP SWAT Team from central Kansas as well as two KHP BearCat Armored Vehicles were brought in to support during the dangerous stand off.
Regarding the deployment of the BearCats, in the course of the armed standoff in northeast Phillipsburg that just took place in May, the Phillips County Review captured images of the beast of a vehicle and wrote about it as follows --
“A battering ram is prominently deployed on the front of the vehicle, and is used for breaching windows and walls as a prelude to inserting the teargas nozzle. This is a 9-ton Lenco BearCat model featuring military spec armor able to take hits from a .50 caliber full metal jacket projectile. Having a top speed of 90mph, in addition to the battering ram and tear gas nozzle it also has multiple gun ports, a rotating roof hatch capable of mounting a heavy machine gun, cameras, spotlights, flood lights, heavy-duty ballistic glass and blast shields.”
With the BearCats on scene and the arrival of the SWAT Team, the special weapons and tactics law enforcement officers made a gradual replacement of the deputies and regular troopers manning the crime scene’s perimeter.
With the main command post consisting of the ranking KHP SWAT officer, Sheriff Charlie Radabaugh and Undersheriff Kyle Pinkerton, a decision was made to move one of the BearCats into position to get the suspect’s attention.
Crawling forward, it edged clear up to the front wall of the apartment, with the boom/teargas nozzle running through the already obliterated front window and well into -- ten feet or more -- the apartment.
That was the attention-getter.
Now, during last May’s deployment of the BearCat in Phillipsburg, it was at this juncture industrial strength tear gas was let loose and filled that structure after many hours of unsuccessful telephone communications.
In this instance, though, Hosier did not have a telephone. So instead of letting loose and filling the structure with teargas, the BearCat boom dropped a cellphone into it.
Hosier picked it up, contact was made, and negotiations began.
Finally, Hosier agreed to surrender. Surrounded, and faced with the prospect of fighting off a flood of dedicated highly-trained heavily-armed and heavily-armored law enforcement personnel, at 1:15 a.m. Saturday morning Hosier called it a night and emerged from the apartment.
But there was one final intense moment however — when he came through the front door and emerged into the high-intensity spotlights, Hosier was still holding his shotgun.
With fingers on triggers and life and death hanging in the balance, a dozen different voices screamed out to him “drop your weapon drop your weapon.”
And he dropped it.
With the suspect taken into custody, he is now held in the Phillips County Jail on multiple felony counts and a $70,000 cash bond. One mystery of the siege yet remains, however, and days later still has law enforcement scratching their heads — during the May barricade incident in northeast Phillipsburg once they moved in and secured the building police officers found a three-legged dog on the premises.
Fast forward to last Friday night/Saturday morning in northwest Phillipsburg. Hosier surrenders, and officers move in and secure the premises.
And what do they find?
A three-legged dog.
Arrest reports and charges are mere allegations and in no way constitute evidence of a crime. All suspects are presumed innocent until and unless convicted in a court of law.