Suspect, woman killed, three officers wounded in 11-hour High Point standoff

After the 11-hour standoff concluded, police also found a woman dead inside the home, High Point Interim Police Chief J.T. Stroud said. Two children inside the home, ages 12 and 14, were unharmed, he said.

The three members of the High Point Police Department's tactical response unit suffered wounds to the right hand, left shoulder and left leg. Two were treated at a High Point Hospital and released, Stroud said, while the one shot in the leg had to undergo surgery and was released over the weekend.

The names of the officers weren't released.

"This takes the cake by far as far as stress," Stroud said at a Friday afternoon news conference, calling the day the most stressful during his 26-year career in law enforcement.

"The job is inherently dangerous. We understand that," he said. "That is still not an easy pill to swallow. ... I didn’t even know who it was this morning [who had been shot]. It didn’t matter who it was. It could have been any of our 262 sworn officers."

Stroud said officers were handling another call at about 11:15 p.m. Thursday when they heard gunshots coming from a home in the 2900 block of West English Road.

The officers saw a man, later identified as 34-year-old Josue Drumond-Cruz, sitting on the front porch of the home and approached him. But he went inside and then quickly returned brandishing an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle with a drum magazine, Stroud said.

Officers quickly took cover and ordered Cruz to drop the weapon. Instead, he barricaded himself inside the home, starting the standoff.

The tactical unit was called in, and officers surrounded the home. Once nearby homes were evacuated, police negotiated with Cruz to get him to surrender peacefully.

At about 3:30 a.m., Stroud said, tactical officers broke through the front door of the home, and Cruz immediately opened fire, wounding the three officers and forcing the others to retreat.

"Sometimes you have to make a move to initiate contact," Stroud said, explaining the decision to try to enter the home.

Cruz continued to fire shots from inside the home throughout the night, the chief said, adding that he didn't know if they were indiscriminate or if individual officers were being targeted.

The Greensboro Police Department's tactical unit was called in to relieve the High Point officers at the scene early Friday.

At about 10:30 a.m., police made a second attempt to enter the home, using flash-bang grenades to assist in the effort, and this time, Cruz was killed, Stroud said.

"This man tried to kill three of our officers. He tried to murder them this morning – unsuccessfully, thank goodness," the chief said.

The dead woman was identified Monday as Blanca Cadavid, who owned the house along with Cruz. No cause of death has been released, but authorities said she had been dead eight to 10 hours before police found her body.

High Point police had been called to the home on other occasions for noise complaints, Stroud said.

With officers from two agencies firing weapons during the incident, the State Bureau of Investigation is reviewing the case.

"Sometimes you scratch your head to figure out why am I doing this job, and this is why we do this job. It's a difficult call, one you don't ever want to receive, but that's just the nature of this business," said Lt. Matt Truitt, spokesman for the High Point Police Department. "That's the risk that we have signed up to take. It's never an easy call, and you have to work through that."