HUTCHINSON, Kan. – The 52-year-old Hutchinson man who held police at bay for nearly nine hours on the Fourth of July has been formally charged by the state.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Steve Maxwell who was present during the standoff charged Thomas Fee with criminal possession of a firearm, criminal discharge of a firearm and interference with law enforcement. Two of the charges are felonies while the discharge of a firearm count is a misdemeanor.
Fee who again appeared via-video from the county jail Wednesday had no real comments after the charges were read to him. He only commented when asked if he would hire his own attorney, saying “I don’t know yet.” Magistrate Judge Randy McEwen to move things along appointed to the Regional Public Defenders Office in the meantime.
Fee is accused of holding police at bay in a garage in the unit block of West 14th, from 9:47 a.m. to around 5:30 p.m, on the Fourth of July. Police fired tear gas twice into the garage that he apparently rents for storage. He eventually came out and tried to run. They then used non-lethal bean bag rounds to get him to stop.
It started when police were investigating a noise complaint and one officer spotted a man with an assault rifle and he allegedly fired a number of rounds, one into the ground then three to four in the air.
The case against Fee now moves to a waiver-status docket on July 23, in front of Judge Joe McCarville.