Vancouver SWAT Veteran Standoff Peaceful End

Allen St. standoff: Man sticks loaded gun in friend's face 
TDN News
Marissa Luck
January 31, 2015

Renford said Kennedy, a security worker the Weyerhaeuser Co. mill site, is a good person who has struggled with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. They served in the army together, including a stint in Iraq in 2004. Kennedy was having a hard time accessing treatment at Vancouver Veteran’s Affairs, Renford said, and was self-medicating with alcohol.

Rex Renford never expected his best friend to point a gun at his face. Standing at the end of loaded pistol, Renford said he feared for his life. But instinct and years of military training kicked in, helping him to disarm his friend Ronald Kennedy.

“I had to get the gun away from him,” Renford, 47, of Longview said Friday, the day after police arrested Kennedy after a two-hour standoff at his Kelso trailer home off Allen Street near Taco Bell and Burger King. “There was no thinking about it. It was do this or die.”

Kennedy, 47, was hanging out with Renford and another friend, Lynne Galloway, Thursday night when Kennedy’s ex-girlfriend Margaret Sullivan showed up to pick up belongings. Sullivan told police she and Kennedy had broken up last weekend. The couple got into a heated argument.

When Sullivan left, Kennedy wandered into his bedroom, drunk and upset, Renford said. Renford said he went to check on Kennedy and found him with pistol pointed at his head. He threatened to kill himself. read more here