SWAT responds to barricaded gunman that wasn't

On Detroit's west side Monday morning, police spent hours engaged in a barricaded gunman situation, but it turns out the suspect was not inside the home during the entire ordeal, police said.

Detroit police responded to a 911 call at about 1 a.m. Monday. A mother, 47, had a guest at her home on the 15000 block of Freeland, which is south of Fenkell and west of Schaefer.

Her son, Darnell Stevenson, 26, was angered by the guest's presence, said Commander Elvin Barren of the Detroit Police Department, in a video published on the department's Facebook page. 

The son "did strangle and strike his mother in the face," but his mother was able to keep her son and her guest separated.

Mother and guest were able to flee the home, though, and called the police, telling authorities that her son suffers from depression, was armed with a 9 mm handgun, and had barricaded himself in a back bedroom of the home, Barren said.

A SWAT team made the scene, supported by police from the precinct, who set a perimeter, and negotiators, who attempted to make contact with the suspect by loudspeaker and by phone, but were unable to reach him. 

Early in the 7 a.m. hour, police entered the home to find that the suspect had been gone the entire time, likely fleeing, Barren said, before SWAT teams got in place.