Details On Construction-Site Standoff In Milpitas Released

MILPITAS, CA – A 33-year-old homeless man surrendered peacefully after a standoff earlier this month in Milpitas following negotiations with trained officers, police said today.

The incident began Aug. 9 at approximately 8:20 p.m. on the 1200 block of California Avenue when law enforcement was called to a construction site where a male, later identified as transient Kosta Petrakis, was "acting erratically" and wielding a large metal pipe, the Milpitas Police Department said.

Petrakis reportedly refused police requests to drop the pipe, so officers, trained in crisis intervention, negotiated with the man for approximately 30 minutes, finally convincing him to "disarm himself and surrender," police said.

"The officers successfully de-escalated a potentially violent situation," the department said, adding that Petrakis was peacefully taken into custody and booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail for obstructing or delaying an officer and given an emergency psychiatric evaluation.

Anyone with information on the incident can call Milpitas police at (408) 586-2400, or anonymously on the Crime Tip Hotline at (408) 586-2500 or via the website http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/crimetip.

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