The downward spiral of a former U.S. Coast Guard officer reached its nadir when a SWAT team ended a six-hour standoff between Daniel Wheatley and law enforcement personnel in the heart of Gilroy.
Dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes April 18 at Cypress Pointe Apartments on Kern Avenue when 32-year-old Wheatley barricaded himself inside his apartment and told neighbors he was armed with explosive devices and other weapons.
It wasn’t until later in the afternoon – following hours of negotiations and the deployment of tactical teams that attracted Central Coast and Bay Area media outlets – that the troubled suspect finally surrendered when a SWAT team stationed outside his door threatened to end the siege by throwing gas canisters into his apartment.
“He really needs help,” said Daniel’s 34-year-old brother, Michael Wheatley, who says his younger sibling struggles with depression.
Aside from that, however, “he’s really stable,” Michael insists.
Late into the afternoon, police reported via radio that Daniel had finally confessed “multiple times” that there was “no bomb” and that “he lied.” He was arrested on charges of making criminal/bomb threats and booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose. The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad then proceeded to sweep the apartment and surrounding area and found no improvised explosive devices or weapons. Residents were given the all-clear to return home and the streets opened back up around 5:15 p.m. No one was harmed or injured.
Daniel is scheduled to enter a plea at 1:30 p.m. April 30 at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill. No specific attorney has been assigned to the case yet, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Daniel is currently being held on a $75,000 bail in the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose.
When the tense standoff began to escalate last Thursday, no one was sure exactly what Daniel had inside his apartment unit at E102. The incident got under way a little after 10 a.m. when police received reports of a disturbance at the Cypress Pointe Apartments. Witnesses flooded GPD with phone calls about a man claiming to have a bomb inside his apartment.
“Wheatley presented a credible safety threat. He stated he had a bomb and was in possession of the detonator,” said GPD Sgt. Chad Gallacinao.
One of the first residents notified was Elvia Castenda, 45, who had just finished breakfast when the police started banging on her door.
“I knew straight away we had to get out,” said Castenda, who along with her family spent the day in the hot sun waiting anxiously to go home.
Another displaced tenant echoed these sentiments.
“I’m ready to go back inside,” said Cypress tenant Maria Velez, 26, as she sat on the curb in the parking lot of O’Reilly Auto Parts on First Street.
As the day waned, police officers and members of Daniel’s family pleaded with him to give up.
The incident caused a major scene as the entire block of Kern Avenue between First Street and Welburn Avenue was closed off to the public. Dozens of law enforcement officials were summoned from the Gilroy/Morgan Hill police departments, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad, SWAT team, Hostage Negotiation Team and even the Gilroy Fire Department (the GFD helped block off the streets). One circulating news report erroneously stated that Antonio Del Buono Elementary School had been placed on lockdown. A GPD press release issued last Thursday also stated that Rod Kelley Elementary School had also been placed on lockdown. Staff at both of those schools, however, said that did not happen.
Sgt. Gallacinao explained that police negotiators continuously urged Daniel to cooperate with law enforcement and surrender, but Daniel “refused to comply with police direction.”
Even the presence of Daniel’s father, who was called upon by officers to help diffuse the situation, did not help according to Michael, who confirmed this isn’t the first time his brother has had a major run-in with law enforcement.
“He was involved in an armed robbery in San Jose about eight or nine years ago,” Michael said.
Speaking from his home in Tennessee, Michael painted a picture of a younger brother who was struggling to get his life back together after serving prison time. Prior to going jail for the armed robbery, Daniel’s Coast Guard career hit the rocks after he was caught smoking marijuana, according to Michael.
“He was living at a halfway house in San Jose and laboring at a company called Daltile,” the older brother said. “Then he slipped his disk (in his back).”
The sequence of events that followed, Michael explained, all compounded to leave Daniel penniless and facing eviction from his apartment in Gilroy 18 months later.
Michael said Daniel had been trying to get Social Security payments because he couldn’t work with his bad back. That claim was ultimately denied and Daniel found himself broke and unable to work.
“You can’t live forever without no money,” Michael added.
One neighbor who declined to give his name and lives on the E block at Cypress said he heard Daniel screaming for help from inside his apartment Thursday morning. The neighbor walked up to the window of Daniel’s apartment unit and asked him what was going on. According to the neighbor, Daniel said he had a bomb, another undisclosed weapon and also brandished a knife. The neighbor claimed Daniel was supposed to have been evicted in the days leading up to the standoff, and that his power had been turned off for several weeks.
Another neighbor said Daniel was seen wandering around the complex at night “screaming for help” last February. The neighbor also refused to give her name.
Visibly shocked members of the Cypress Pointe management team would not comment on what sort of tenant Daniel had been. The three employees were holed up inside the office for the duration of the standoff and appeared exhausted after their day-long seclusion.
“The police were handling the situation,” said a blonde-haired woman who refused to be identified. “We were just dealing with phone calls.”
Even though the block was flooded with law enforcement personnel, the City won’t be footing the bill for the colossal multi-agency presence, according to City Administrator Tom Haglund.
“We have automatic aid agreements with other law enforcement entities,” Haglund said.
The SWAT team is shared with Morgan Hill and the Sheriff’s Department was there as a matter of course, Haglund explained.
The only unbudgeted expense that the City will be on the hook for, Haglund reasoned, will be overtime for GPD officers if there was any.
