Barricade over after Las Vegas police find no one in house

Police surrounded a home in the east Las Vegas Valley in which they thought an armed man was holed up early Friday, but after nearly seven hours officers entered the house and found no one inside. The operation forced the evacuations of a few neighbors in the dead of night.

Officers initially responded about 1:15 a.m. to reports of an armed man believed to be inside a house on the 6300 block of Waterdragon Avenue, near Mt. Hood Street and Washington Avenue, according to Metropolitan Police Lt. Peter Kisfalvi.

Police closed Mt. Hood at the south end of Washington for hours as crisis negotiators used a bullhorn to tell the man to come outside with his hands up.

SWAT officers entered the home around 8 a.m. and discovered the man they were searching for was not inside. They have now issued a search warrant for his arrest, according to Metro spokesperson Laura Meltzer.

The identity of the man was not immediately released.

Several people were evacuated from the area around the home and gathered at nearby Brookman Elementary School. One neighbor said the people living in the home moved in about six months ago.

A neighbor said he's heard the bullhorning for a couple of hours now pic.twitter.com/psX1srdiNh

— Mike Shoro (@mike_shoro) August 11, 2017

Two women, one holding a black spaniel, parked outside the school about 5 a.m. They live in the neighborhood and left for temporary shelter at the school. Police knocked on the door and told them to get out.

“They didn’t ask us,” one of the women said, “They told us.”

Contact Max Michor at mmichor@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @MaxMichor on Twitter. Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Dana Rutkin contributed to this story.