Published: July 01, 2008 12:43 am      

NORTH TONAWANDA: Shots fired in Felton St. home

A man who repeatedly discharged a shotgun inside his Felton Street home early Saturday was arraigned Monday in North Tonawanda City Court.

Robert J. Eschenbach, 44, 21 Felton St., lower, is charged with first-degree reckless endangerment.

Police reports indicate he was arrested following a psychiatric evaluation and is being held without bail.

SWAT personnel were called to the residence after officers responded at about 1:30 a.m. to reports that the man was becoming irate while communicating with his daughter via a cell phone.

North Tonawanda Police Chief Randy Szukala said nobody was injured, and the SWAT unit was called only after random shots were fired within the house and contact with Eschenbach failed.

About five shots were fired from a shotgun loaded with pellets, he said. The number is an approximation based on damage to the home’s interior and exterior walls. One of the blasts penetrated the rear of the building, sending pellets into the back yard.

“There was no contact other than our officers knocking on the door — he would respond by turning the music up louder,” Szukala said.

Several neighbors were evacuated out of concern that they were in range of the weapon.

The man came out of the house, unarmed, about an hour and a half after officers first responded. SWAT personnel and a police negotiator were on hand but not deployed.

“We activated the SWAT team and he ended up coming out prior to the SWAT team — they were actually just pulling up on the street when he came out,” Szukala said.

Eschenbach was transported to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center for a psychiatric evaluation, where he was later arrested.

He is scheduled to appear back in city court July 3 for a second hearing before City Court Judge William Lewis.

Szukala said the man was text messaging his daughter prior to the incident and that the cell phone he was using has been entered into evidence.

“We’ll be going through it to (help) determine what may have caused the entire incident.”

Betty Ruffner, 76, lives in a house adjacent to Eschenbach’s and was one of those called by police and advised to leave her home immediately. She called her daughter, who then drove to the scene to pick her up. The two then monitored a police scanner before calling police and getting the OK for Ruffner to return home, at about 2:30 a.m.

“I was in bed sound asleep and my phone rang a little after 1 a.m.,” she said. “I got on there and (the voice said) there’s a fellow holed up at 21 Felton St., which is next door to me, and I had to leave.

“I walked out the front door and there was an officer who came from around the house, and he had a big, long rifle with him, and he walked me out to the car.”

Ruffner has lived at 27 Felton St. for 45 years and said she has never experienced anything like Saturday morning’s event.

“I don’t want to go through that again. That’s a little much.”

Szukala said there has been a sharp increase in the number of high-profile incidents involving weapons throughout the area.

In May an armed 29-year old male was holed up in a garage behind his parents’ Niagara Street home before being talked out safely by trained negotiators; a series of drug raids conducted in late April involved heavily armed SWAT teams on the local and county levels; and elsewhere, in Buffalo, a three-hour standoff on I-190, in which a 66-year-old man threatened his own life and those of police officers by waving a gun in and around his vehicle seem to illustrate a disturbing trend.

Szukala mentioned stresses caused by a hurting economy among his guesses as to the reason for such events, but said he can’t pinpoint one cause to account for the rise.

“Our SWAT team has been getting a workout the last couple of months,” he said. “Thankfully, it’s been contained within their own homes and we’ve been able to keep the neighborhoods safe. But definitely, I’ve seen an increase in guns being used. We’ve been seeing it all over the area.”

Contact reporter Neale Gulleyat 693-1000, ext. 114.