FARGO - Police talked a man out of his room in a north Fargo hotel early Tuesday, March 29, after he reported seeing an armed man outside his room wearing a bulletproof vest.
Police were initially called to Candlewood Suites, 1831 NDSU Research Park Dr. N., around 12:30 a.m.
The hotel guest reported seeing a man with a gun wearing an armored vest outside of his room, said Fargo Police Lt. Chris Helmick, who noted the guest may have been suffering from a medical condition.
Officers set up a perimeter around the building and people in surrounding rooms on the third floor were safely evacuated. Traffic was blocked on numerous roads surrounding the hotel, which sits just west of the Fargodome and on the northwestern edge of the North Dakota State University campus.
An armored SWAT vehicle was used to bring equipment to responding officers at the hotel, Helmick said, but a SWAT team was not called to the scene.
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At one point, the caller was barricaded in the room. Police were eventually able to talk him out through the door and through contact with dispatch. He was brought to the hospital for an evaluation.
Police do not believe there was a gunman.
“We’ll still investigate that and we’ll debrief him once we get him to the hospital just to find out," Helmick said. "But at this point we don’t think there was actually anybody out there, we think it was probably more of his mental state that caused that.”
Austin Erickson of Forum News Service contributed to this report.
