\u00a0hours-long standoff that unfolded Sunday morning<\/a> in a quiet St. Johns County neighborhood.<\/p>\nAccording to the St. Johns County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Robert Spencer barricaded himself inside a home on Stargaze Lane in the Beacon Lake neighborhood, prompting a heavy law enforcement response that included the sheriff\u2019s office SWAT team.<\/p>\n
Deputies were at the home after receiving an attempt-to-locate request from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department related to a domestic violence incident that occurred in their jurisdiction, the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
When deputies attempted to make contact, Spencer reportedly refused to come out and barricaded himself inside the home.<\/p>\n
Cellphone video recorded by a neighbor captured the moment SWAT deputies used explosives to force entry into the house, ending the standoff after more than an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it took about an hour and a half before they were able to breach the doors and blew the doors off,\u201d said Gillian Gold, who lives directly across the street from the home.<\/p>\n
Gold said she has lived in the Beacon Lake neighborhood for about 30 days and was home with her two daughters when the situation unfolded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was woke up to this so I honestly thought it was the fire department at the door because I heard banging and sirens,\u201d Gold said. \u201cI opened the door and the first thing I saw was their guns drawn, knocking on the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gold said deputies asked to use her home as a staging area during the operation and remained there for about two hours, including staging snipers inside one of her daughter\u2019s bedrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey knocked on my door asking if they could use my house as a staging area for their snipers,\u201d Gold said. \u201cA few minutes later they came in, staged in my daughter\u2019s bedroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said deputies kept her informed throughout the operation, including before loud bangs and explosives were used to breach the home.<\/p>\n
According to the sheriff\u2019s office, deputies forced entry into the house and found Spencer dead inside. Authorities said no foul play is suspected, and the official cause of death has not yet been released by the medical examiner.<\/p>\n
Gold said she did not know Spencer personally and had only seen him in passing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the incident, Gold said she believes it was isolated and does not reflect the safety of the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this was just a one-off situation,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think this is something that makes the neighborhood not a safe area.\u201d<\/p>\n
First Coast News reached out to the Jacksonville Beach Police Department for additional information regarding the domestic violence incident, but did not immediately receive a response.<\/p>\n
RELATED: SJSO: Subject ‘no longer outstanding’ amid SWAT activity in St. Johns County neighborhood<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, Robert Spencer barricaded himself in a home on Stargaze Lane. No…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-142947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-jacksonville","9":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","10":"tag-jacksonville-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}