The sounds of bullhorns pierced the air in a normally quiet rural Douglas County neighborhood.

It was 1 a.m. Tuesday, and local law enforcement officials were trying to talk a man who had been holed up for nearly six hours inside a house in the 2000 block of East 1550 Road into surrendering.

“Robert, pick up the phone,” a voice echoed over a loud speaker, as the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office attempted to contact the suspect barricaded inside. “No one is going to hurt you. Turn the lights off and on; we need to know that you are OK.”

The standoff began just before 7 p.m. Monday. Deputies were dispatched to the area not far from the Lawrence Municipal Airport, where a Dodge pickup truck had been driven through the front wall of a home.

Hours later the incident would end after a police dog and a special response unit entered the house.

Now the man is in Douglas County Jail and charged with aggravated battery.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the first deputy on the scene saw a man identified as 38-year-old Robert P. Petrey Jr. getting out of the truck and running inside the house.

Neighbors say Petrey lived there with his girlfriend and her three children, 8-year-old twin girls and a boy, 11.

The first few hours of the standoff, authorities were unsure whether the suspect had taken any of the children hostage inside.

Baldwin resident George McClanahan, the children’s father, not knowing what was unfolding north of Lawrence, received a call from a sheriff’s detective around 10:30 p.m. McClanahan said the children were with him.

“My children could have been there,” he said. “It’s just lucky I had them with me. I don’t want to let them go back there.”

A truck has been rammed inside a home north of Lawrence. After Monday's collision, Robert Petrey Jr., who lives at the residence, was arrested at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday inside the house after a six-hour standoff with police. He has been charged with aggravated battery.

Police kept neighbors from the area. Many were not allowed to return to their houses once the standoff began. Those who already were home when the incident started were asked by authorities to stay indoors.

Frequent visitors

One neighbor peered across the field through binoculars. Other neighbors watched the scene unfold at the house, where many of them said a police presence was not uncommon.

This time, though, more than 30 officers and deputies crouched behind patrol cars on all sides of the house, attempting to communicate with Petrey barricaded inside.

“We attempted by phone. We also attempted on our p.a. system to make contact with him. We tried all evening to contact him, and he never would answer a phone,” Douglas County Undersheriff Ken McGovern said.

So the decision was made to enter the house.

The Sheriff’s canine unit was sent into the residence about 1:30 a.m., since it was unknown whether the suspect was armed.

“As far as being armed, we never did determine that,” McGovern said. “He’d barricaded himself in.”

6News video: Six-hour stand off ends peacefully north of town

The dog’s handler, Cpl. Ed Swanson, said the dog, Gero, was trained to find suspects inside buildings.

“It removes the possibility of an officer getting injured,” Swanson said. “Unfortunately, it’s one of the hazards that he has to deal with.”

Swanson said the incident was a first for Gero — the first time the dog has been sent in to track down a barricaded suspect with the Police Department’s special response team.

“We got to the residence, and an announcement was made several times for the subject to surrender himself,” Swanson said. “He was noncompliant.”

Surrender

At that point, the dog was sent inside the residence.

The special response team then entered the house searching room by room, Swanson said. Petrey was in a bedroom, and within moments the standoff came to an end.

“When we made contact with him, it was shortly thereafter that he came out and turned himself in to officers,” McGovern said.

Officers said they didn’t know what drove Petrey to barricade himself in the house.

Petrey made his first appearance before a Douglas County judge, appearing by video from the Douglas County Jail.

The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office charged Petrey with one count of aggravated battery, stemming from the domestic incident prior to the standoff.

Court records show Petrey faces other charges for domestic abuse, with two other cases pending with the same victim: one an aggravated battery charge, the other a felony criminal damage to property case.

District Court Judge Peggy Kittel set Petrey’s bond at $30,000. His next court appearance was scheduled for July 13.