SYRACUSE - A robbery and a standoff in the northern part of the county Saturday night led to the arrest of a Syracuse man early Sunday morning.
James Paul Bishop, 33, of 307 N. Main St., Syracuse, was arrested and booked into the Kosciusko County Jail around 1:57 a.m. Sunday on one count of robbery while armed and on a warrant for aggravated battery. His bond was set at $2,000.Bishop allegedly robbed two men at gunpoint, then later barricaded himself in his residence with a 10-year-old girl.
According to the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department, two men said they were at Duffy's Bar, Syracuse, when they decided to go to an automatic teller machine to get cash. They got in a black pickup with a man they knew only as "Richard" to go to the ATM.
Once in the pickup, the men drove out of Syracuse to CR 300E, just north of CR 1300N, then told one of his passengers to drive.
The driver of the truck then got out a semi-automatic handgun, hit one of the men in the forehead with the gun, ordering the men out of the pickup. After the driver told them to kneel down in a field, they said they heard the man pull the trigger of the gun twice but the gun did not fire. At some point during the incident the driver took money from one of the victims.
When the men saw a car on the road, they ran to it and got in. After following the black pickup for a short distance, the men had the person in the car take them back to the bar. Once they told a few people in the bar about the incident, the men reported it to the Syracuse Police Department.
Around 11:40 p.m., a vehicle matching the description of the suspect's pickup was spotted at a residence on Main Street in Syracuse. Officers went to the residence where they saw Bishop and a woman in the living room watching television. Police went to the front door and both the man and woman answered it.
The man, later identified as Bishop, reportedly refused to give police his name and did not want to answer questions about where he was earlier in the evening. Then Bishop allegedly got belligerent and slammed and locked the door.
A detective arrived at the scene and told officers that the man in the house matched the description of the suspect.
Later, the woman exited the home and talked to officers in the street, then went back to the porch of the house where Bishop was waiting.
Bishop reportedly told her to get in the pickup and leave, but she was taken into custody by officers. She then told officers her 10-year-old daughter was still in the house.
When the woman was taken into custody, Bishop reportedly began yelling at the officer, and an officer shot the man with a taser. However, only one probe of the taser went in the man's arm, while the other probe hit the door jamb.
After falling to the floor, the man got up, shut the door and barricaded himself inside the house. Around 1:12 a.m., Bishop left the home and was taken into custody without incident.
A search warrant was obtained for the home. During the search officers found two black 9mm pistols in the skirting of the bathtub and a rifle and 9mm ammunition in the upstairs of the house. One of the guns found in the bathtub was loaded.
The incident remains under investigation by the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department.
