AnonymousSource: Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office
At 12:01 p.m. yesterday, deputies were called to 897 Camino Del Sur by a landlord who was asking for help removing an aggressive subject who broke into in a vacant apartment. When deputies arrived, they searched the inside of the apartment and found all of the rooms empty, and the door to the bathroom locked. They called out through the bathroom door and the suspect inside made it clear that he refused to leave.
Additional deputies, including a K9 Unit responded to the area, set up a perimeter around the apartment and asked neighboring residents to vacate temporarily for their safety. Deputies talked with the suspect through the exterior window of the bathroom, but he continued to insist that he would not leave. The suspect’s friend also spoke with him through the window, asking him to leave peacefully but he refused. After talking to the suspect through the window for over an hour, negotiations deteriorated, and deputies decided to deploy a chemical irritant into the bathroom to encourage the suspect to surrender. Two rounds of O.C. (oleoresin capsicum) were deployed through the window, the suspect immediately came out of the bathroom, and was taken into custody by deputies inside the apartment.
The suspect, 51-year-old Donald Cameron of Santa Barbara, received medical attention on scene for the O.C. exposure and was then booked into the Main Jail. Cameron is being held on $50,000 bail for burglary (felony), vandalism (felony) and obstructing a peace officer (misdemeanor).
