Domestic dispute leads to bomb scare in Hallettsville

Gonzales County Sheriff’s deputies lent assistance to a situation last month in Hallettsville that ended up in a bomb disposal unit being called out from Austin.

It started when Hallettsville police officers were dispatched at 5:19 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, to the 100 block of South Main Street regarding a disturbance between a male and an unidentified female. When officers arrived, the adult male fled on foot toward the courthouse square.

Officers pursued the male subject. On the southeast side of the courthouse, the male subject began to remove a device from his clothing and threatened officers with it, who then used a TASER to immobilize the suspect and make him drop the device. He was taken into custody in the 200 block of East Second Street.

Identified as James Adam Day, 43, of Vidor, the suspect had an outstanding parole warrant for his arrest. He was transported to the Lavaca County Jail and also charged with evading arrest/detention with a previous conviction, two counts of terroristic threat against a peace officer and possession of prohibited weapon. He remains in jail in lieu of $50,000 bond.

Believing the discarded device to possibly be a bomb, the Hallettsville police sought assistance from Lavaca County Sheriff’s Office, Hallettsville VFD, GCSO, Lavaca County Emergency Management and Texas Department of Emergency Management, as well as the Lavaca County EMS, in maintaining a cordon around the item until an Austin Police Department bomb squad could come help identify the device. It was later identified as a grenade simulator and safely detonated by the bomb squad without any injuries caused or reported.