MIDLAND, Texas — The hostage situation at Sundance Creek apartments came to a resolution early Friday morning after more than 24 hours. Christian Armani Milan, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by NewsWest 9, was arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping sexual abuse.
This was thanks to the work of multiple law enforcement agencies. This includes the lead agency Midland Police Department, Odessa Police Department, Texas DPS and others.
Milan, who reportedly was holding his girlfriend and her nine-year-old child hostage, was eventually arrested Friday morning at about 1:30 a.m. after multiple tactics and efforts from the many agencies.
"There's a lot of technologies that go into these incidents and tactics wise, we utilize drones primarily, mainly for intel," said MPD Deputy Chief of the Field Operations Division Brian Rackow. "The location of the apartment really did not give us much of a chance to deploy any kind of robot platforms."
Eventually they found their winning tactic.
"And what ended up happening finally is that to make entry into the apartment, explosive breaches were used," Rackow said.
But what goes into something like this in the eyes of law enforcement, knowing that lives may be at stake?
"The problem that we face is we want to resolve all of these at the lowest possible way," Rackow said. "And that is to make sure that we ensure the life [and] safety of those victims primarily and then the life [and] safety of the suspect."
And if it takes more than 24 hours to save lives, MPD says so be it.
"Well, it took that long because our suspect was talking, he was negotiating," Rackow said. "And so as long as he's doing that, he's driving, the bad guy’s the one who drives all this. So what we had was somebody who is still talking to us, and if they're talking, we maybe will come to a resolution that fits everybody without any force being used. Then therefore, it ran up right up through those 24 hours before he finally fell asleep and allowed us to go in there and get him."
The several departments worked in eight hours shifts, so while the suspect was slowly wearing down, well-rested and trained officers made their move.
"He didn't have the breaks that we were giving everybody else," Rackow said. "So once he got exhausted and we found that best time to get him while he was not ready, that was when they went in and did. So it came out as a successful resolution."
A resolution that resulted in no reported injuries to the two hostages.
"So we can always replace property, we can't replace lives," Rackow said.