Woman Arrested After Standoff

A Glendale woman threatened to kill her husband Monday afternoon then barricaded herself in a shoe repair shop in the lobby of a Glendale high-rise for nearly three hours, police said.

The woman, who had a hammer and what was thought to be a rifle, was arrested after officers fired two stun grenades, Police Chief Randy Adams said. The rifle turned out to be a toy.

“We had a distraught female who wanted to kill her husband,” Adams said. But the husband wasn’t at the Avid Shoe Repair shop in the 600 block of Central Avenue when she arrived about 3 p.m.

Many of the workers of the 26-story building were evacuated and waited outside as police negotiated.

“We talked to her at length, but she refused to surrender and was armed with a hammer so our Special Response Team made a forced entry after firing flash bangs,” Adams said.

The woman, identified as Nazik Markarian, 50, was subdued after a brief struggle.

Adams said she would be booked on suspicion of making a terrorist threat.

The woman had been involved in a previous encounter with police when she threatened to jump from the building’s parking structure, authorities said.