Officers were first dispatched to the home shortly after 2 p.m., and it wasn’t until just after 7 p.m. when Smith-Nerlien was taken into custody, police said.
Officer Jessica Schindeldecker, a Fargo police spokeswoman, said Smith-Nerlien voluntarily exited the home. Detectives searched the home, but were unable to find a gun, police said.
After Smith-Nerlien was taken into custody, medics treated him for some sort of injury as he sat in the back seat of a squad car. Schindeldecker said she did not know his condition.
He was booked into the Cass County Jail on three felonies: aggravated assault, terrorizing and preventing arrest, as well as a misdemeanor warrant.
Using social media and the CodeRED phone alert system, police urged neighborhood residents to shelter in place after the standoff had developed. The all-clear was given about 7 p.m.
Schindeldecker said the domestic dispute that police were initially dispatched to involved Smith-Nerlien and a woman. Before officers arrived at the home, a woman jumped out of a window, Schindeldecker said.
The woman was hurt, and she was taken to a local hospital. The extent of her injuries was not known, Schindeldecker said.
Police entered the house and removed a second woman. Officers tried to go into a locked utility room where Smith-Nerlien was located, police said.
Officers heard what they believed was a gunshot come from the room, and so they left the house, Schindeldecker said.
At that point, Smith-Nerlien’s intentions and his emotional state were unknown. “That’s why we exited,” she said.
A police command center was set up in the Family Fare parking lot along North University Drive. Dozens of police vehicles filled the lot that was cordoned off with caution tape, although customers were still allowed to shop.
From the grocery store parking lot, about a dozen Red River Valley SWAT team members headed east on Eighth Avenue North toward the home.
About 4:40 p.m., police said via Twitter that a SWAT team member had been removed from the area due to an illness. Just before 5 p.m., the SWAT team began using the public address system of its BearCat armored vehicle to try to communicate with Smith-Nerlien.
Streets in the neighborhood were closed off, and residents unable to access their homes or vehicles hung out on street corners to observe the standoff.
“They said it’s not safe. I hope things get better. It’s been taking so long,” said Kroyan Wureh, who lives in a nearby apartment.
Wureh said that after trying to go home to see his 1-year-old son, he was escorted away from his apartment and then sat on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 12th Street North for nearly two hours.
“My nanny is in there,” he said of his apartment. “She should've been out by now. I was running home from work, but now it’s on lockdown.”
Last July, Smith-Nerlien was involved in a crash that injured another driver in south Fargo. He was charged with possession and ingestion of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, aggravated reckless driving, refusal to submit to a chemical test and DUI. He pleaded guilty to the charges, which were all misdemeanors, Cass County District Court records show.
He has an open felony case from May when he was charged with terrorizing, according to court records. In that case, he's pleaded not guilty.