Bovina is one of those little rural towns that deserves to be called "sleepy." By 11pm on Sunday night, it's usually lights-out for the Delaware County town's 600-odd residents. But on Sunday, August 11, lights were blazing in house after house in Bovina Center, as locals waited for the end of a standoff between an armed gunman and local law enforcement.
On Sunday afternoon at 2pm, Delaware County Emergency Management issued a notice advising all Bovina residents to stay inside and lock their doors. Officials later confirmed that the cause of the alert was a manhunt for a gunman. By Sunday evening, the man was holed up in a house on Pink Street, surrounded by state and local police who were attempting to negotiate a surrender. Confirmed details about the situation are still scarce, but an official told the Watershed Post that the man held two hostages at gunpoint on Sunday, both of whom escaped unharmed.
Late Sunday night, the standoff at the Pink Street house was still ongoing, but the scene was quiet. The lockdown advisory for most of the town of Bovina has been lifted, according to a dispatcher at the Delaware County Sheriff's Office who spoke with the Watershed Post at 11:20pm.
Bovina residents can now leave their houses and move freely, the dispatcher confirmed, except for an area surrounding the house where the gunman is still locked in a standoff with police. A stretch of County Highway 5/Pink Street between Jim Lane Road and County Highway 6 is still cordoned off.
Julia Reischel was on the scene in Bovina on Sunday night, and contributed to the reporting of this story.
