Vandalism suspect who threatened to shoot cops is arrested

By the Daily Post staff

A man who was causing a disturbance at the Stanford Shopping Center was arrested across the street at the Stanford Park Hotel following a standoff in which he threatened to shoot officers, police said. It turns out he had no gun.

Reece Logan Hauf, 32, of Campbell, was arrested following the incident Friday afternoon and booked into jail, police said.

At 1:46 p.m. Friday, police dispatchers got a call from security at the mall saying a man was yelling at customers, threatening passers-by and spitting on store windows, police said.

When officers arrived, police described the man as uncooperative but was waiting for a ride-share vehicle.

Security officers told police that if he didn’t leave their property, they wanted to place him under a citizen’s arrest for disrupting and interfering with their business.

The man ran away into the parking lot. Officers followed him from a distance, assuming he was running to meet his ride-share vehicle. But then they saw him swing a metal water bottle and shatter the rear window of two unoccupied vehicles in the parking lot, police said.

Now that the man had committed felony vandalism, officers chased him across El Camino Real to an outdoor area of the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park.

The man put his hand in his pocket, said he had a gun, and threatened several times to shoot and kill the officers, police said.

Then he climbed up on a second-floor balcony.

Police said they took cover and attempted to de-escalate the situation by talking to the man and negotiate an arrest.

But the man refused to obey police commands and negotiations failed. Then officers deployed what they call “less lethal munitions” — first firing pepperball rounds at a wall near him to see if the pepper spray would encourage him to give up or at least move him off the balcony.

When that didn’t work, police fired a “less-lethal projectile” weapon at him, striking him in the hip area.

Then he surrendered and complied with the commands of police. Police discovered he didn’t have a gun, as he had claimed.

Hauf was booked into jail for two counts of felony vandalism, misdemeanor obstructing a business establishment (Stanford Shopping Center), and misdemeanor resisting arrest (for engaging in the standoff with officers and not complying with their lawful arrest commands).