An armed man who barricaded himself inside a Hall County home with three people was arrested Friday afternoon following a five-hour standoff with deputies, authorities said.
Devon Mason Brannon, 36, was taken into custody about 3:45 p.m. after a fire broke out on the second floor of the Underwood Drive home where he was holed up, sheriff’s office spokesman Derreck Booth said Friday evening.
Authorities were called to the neighborhood in northern Hall County shortly before 11 a.m. after Brannon forced his way inside the house with a handgun and began waving it around, authorities said. Two men and a woman were home at the time, Booth said, adding that Brannon knew all three.
Between the initial call and Brannon’s arrest, all three people were able to escape unharmed.
There was a large police presence in the neighborhood for much of the afternoon as multiple agencies worked to coax the man outside. Authorities evacuated several surrounding homes as a precaution, but many neighbors refused and decided to stay put during the standoff.
Deputies tried repeatedly to negotiate with Brannon via phone and loudspeaker but were unable to speak with him, Booth said.
“At approximately 3:40 p.m., (a) fire broke out on the second floor of the house,” Booth said in a news release. “Apparently overcome by smoke, Brannon broke a window and came out with his hands up.”
No injuries were reported during the incident and no shots were fired by Brannon or law enforcement, Booth said. It wasn’t immediately clear what started the fire.
Video filmed by Channel 2 Action News appeared to show Brannon being led away from the scene in handcuffs after the hourslong ordeal. It’s unclear what prompted the standoff, but authorities said the incident was not related to the search for an inmate who walked away from a work detail on jail grounds Friday morning and left in a waiting SUV.
Brannon was booked into the Hall County Jail on two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, online records show. He remained held without bond Saturday morning.
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