A woman was taken into custody at midnight Thursday after a standoff with police on Richmond Highway (Route 1) in the Hybla Valley area that shut down the road for 36 hours, Fairfax County police said.
The woman’s name was not immediately released.
Authorities said the incident began when they were asked by another law enforcement agency to perform a welfare check in the area at about 11 a.m. Tuesday. They said they were checking for a missing person in potential danger.
Outside a Quality Inn Motel, they encountered a distraught woman.
“When we responded there, there was a woman who said she had been abducted, and the suspect vehicle had just fled. So we began searching the area, and that’s when one of our officers found the vehicle, and it led to a pursuit and ended here,” Lt. James Curry said. “She did display a firearm to the officers during that first traffic stop, and that’s led to the response that you see here.”
The barricade has been going on for 36 hours, and the woman’s family said authorities requested messages from them as a de-escalation tactic.
For the safety of the public, part of Richmond Highway – the major artery through the area – was shut down late Tuesday morning. All lanes of Richmond Highway were blocked between Lockheed Boulevard and Boswell Avenue.
Authorities said the highway would be open soon after they took the woman into custody.
Though police have not directly confirmed if the incident is connected to the case of two missing Maryland women, a family member of the barricaded woman told News4 that she was connected to 25-year-old Lauren Kingsbury. Kingsbury had not been seen since March 24 before she was found safe earlier Tuesday in Fairfax County.
This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.
