Watsonville Man Surrenders to Police After Holding Mom Hostage for 8 Hours

A 24-year-old man was arrested after a nearly eight-hour standoff Sunday at a Watsonville apartment where he allegedly kept his mother against her will, police said.

Jose Carlos Garcia-Flores, a Watsonville resident, was arrested on suspicion of witness intimidation and false imprisonment, police said.

Around 12:30 a.m., police received an anonymous call from a person on a cellphone who said he was hallucinating and armed with a firearm outside his apartment in the area of the 300 block of Pennsylvania Drive.

Officers searched the area but were unable to find the caller, according to police.

At about 3:45 a.m., officers then received a call from the same block where they could hear a disturbance over the phone and responded to the scene, police said.

A woman called to the officers from a second-floor window of an apartment complex and said her son, later identified as Garcia-Flores, was holding her against her will, according to police.

The woman also informed the officers that her son may be armed with more than one weapon, police said.

Police called for help from California Highway Patrol officers and Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies to help divert traffic and evacuate people from the area.

Hostage negotiators convinced the suspect to release his mother after a few hours into the standoff, police said. Officers negotiated with the suspect on-and-off for almost eight hours.

They were eventually able to persuade him to take out a barricade from the apartment door and surrender, according to police. No injuries were reported.

Garcia-Flores was arrested without incident and transported to Watsonville Community Hospital to be evaluated before he was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail, police said.

Investigators did not find a firearm but the suspect allegedly had modified knives, according to police.

--Bay City News Service, photo via Shutterstock