Man charged following 5-hour standoff in Gwinnett County

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Gwinnett County police arrested a man they said was at the center of a SWAT standoff that lasted much of Wednesday afternoon.

Gregory Keith Mann, 46, was arrested and booked into the Gwinnett County Jail at 7:40 p.m. Wednesday on two counts of aggravated assault.

Gwinnett County’s SWAT team was called to a house on Saratoga Drive in Lawrenceville at  2 p.m. after shots were fired inside the house where sheriff's deputies were serving an eviction notice.

When the deputies went inside the home, Mann was upstairs and fired shots, authorities told Channel 2's Tony Thomas.

The deputies got out of the residence, as did a woman who had been in the home.

The Gwinnett SWAT team and negotiators were called to the scene to try to get Mann to surrender.

They used tear gas to try to force him out of the home.

After several hours of negotiations, Mann surrendered.

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Channel 2's Nefertiti Jaquez learned the woman in the home, Elsa Mann, had let Gregory Mann, her ex-husband, stay with her because he was let go from his job and didn't have a place to stay.

She said she filed eviction papers two weeks ago because she didn’t feel safe and wanted him out. Elsa Mann said her ex-husband is bipolar and was not taking his medicine.

“He just stayed and I keep asking him if he found a place and he said, ‘No because I haven’t found a job yet,’” she said. “I don’t feel safe, so I started the eviction.”

Elsa Mann said she was scared someone would get hurt during the standoff.

“I was very afraid. I was shaking the whole time,” she said.

Residents just coming home were told to wait outside the danger zone.

Some desperately wanted to get to their family members huddling in their homes for safety.

"Hopefully they're OK,” Ali Hassan said at the time. “My wife is very nervous and shaken... When she see police like this with that amount she’d freak out."

Elsa Mann said she just wants her ex-husband to get the help he needs.

“I was relieved that he was alive and no one got hurt,” she said.

Cox Media Group