Editor’s note: All charges in this case were dropped by the court on March 4, 2025.
A Bonny Doon man arrested after an hourslong search that closed Highway 1 and put a Davenport elementary school under lockdown faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon, criminal threats, elder abuse, exhibiting a firearm and exhibiting a deadly weapon.
Early Tuesday afternoon, Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies responded to a family disturbance they said involved “a male brandishing a shotgun” in Bonny Doon. The suspect reportedly fled from the home with a shotgun before deputies arrived on the scene.
They later found the suspect’s car and gun in the Davenport area and shut down the highway in both directions for more than two hours as they searched for the suspect. Authorities also put nearby Pacific Elementary School under a shelter-in-place order out of an abundance of caution.
Sheriff’s office spokesperson Ashley Keehn told Lookout on Wednesday that the suspect, 53-year-old Eric Britton, returned to the Bonny Doon property several hours after the family disturbance, where he was arrested. Deputies “took him into custody without further incident,” she said.
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