Man Arrested After Fort Worth Standoff

Standoff ended peacefully around 2:30 p.m.

A three-hour police SWAT team standoff ended peacefully in Fort Worth on Thursday afternoon with the surrender of a man wanted on an out-of-state arrest warrant and local charges.

Rodney Waters was charged with injury to a child in a Feb. 20 incident in Fort Worth and faces out-of-state charges.

Fort Worth police did not reveal the nature of the out-of-state accusations.

Police spokeswoman Officer Sharron Neal said officers went looking for Waters at about 11:15 a.m. at the Heather Village Apartments in the 6000 block of Boca Raton.

Neal said he barricaded himself in an apartment and refused to answer his cellphone.

Waters barricaded the apartment and had a mattress and other furniture piled up on the second-floor balcony in an apparent attempt to keep officers at bay.

Officers were unsure if Waters was armed or if he might be holding a hostage, so the SWAT team was called in, and officers surrounded the apartment. Neighbors were told to leave for their safety, and police negotiators attempted to reach Waters with a hard-wired phone placed outside the apartment door.

His girlfriend helped police negotiate Waters' surrender at 2:25 p.m., and he was found to be unarmed with no hostage.

A relative of the girlfriend said police have been investigating Waters since burns were discovered on the woman's 2-year-old child after Waters babysat the child.

Meanwhile, a second, unrelated standoff occurred on the city's south side. In that situation, which also ended peacefully, a person barricaded himself after officers tried to serve an arrest warrant.

NBC 5's Frank Heinz contributed to this report.

Contact Us