Sharpshooter End Pittsburg Standoff

Sheriff's snipers shot and killed an armed man Saturday night who had held his mother hostage in a barricaded apartment and kept police at bay for 28 hours, authorities said.
     
The 20-year-old suspect was shot by SWAT team members from the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department at about 5:30 p.m., ending the marathon standoff that began early Friday afternoon, Pittsburg police Lt. Brian Addington said.
     
Police fired tear gas canisters into the building and forced the man out before the sheriff's sharpshooters killed him.
     
The man's mother was rescued safely and neighbors who had been evacuated because the man claimed to have had explosives were being allowed to return to their homes, Addington said.
     
Officers had gone to the apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area city 30 miles northeast east of Oakland around 1:30 p.m. Friday after a resident of the complex reported the man had cursed at her while holding a handgun.
     
Officers were told the man was holding his mother against her will, and several times saw him in the window with a gun.
     
Negotiators from the Contra Costa County sheriff's department tried for hours on both Friday and Saturday to draw the man out.
     
The man, whose name has not been released, had been living in the apartment with his parents for about eight months, Addington said.
     
Police said he was wanted on a no-bail arrest warrant for violating probation after a grand theft conviction.