The residents of Desert Jewel Drive were worried about the residents at 719. As far as neighbors could tell, a woman lived there with some older children, but there were frequently others, often strangers. Cars came in and out at all hours of the night.
Neighbors suspected drug deals. They had been reported to their rental company multiple times. The cops had been there before.
On the evening of Nov. 7, neighbors saw several vehicles from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, joined by detectives from Partners Against Narcotics Trafficking Task Force, outside 719 Desert Jewel Drive. Throughout the day, some of those cars could be seen driving through the area.
“We noticed a few extra sheriff vehicles around, and then when we came home, there was one sitting in front of the house,” said Gary Deardort, who lives with his wife Sharen diagonally across from the house.
Christopher Dobrowolski, who lives in the house across the street, was sitting down for dinner with his family. From their kitchen, they could see 719 Desert Jewel Drive through their blinds. Dobrowolski watched as four vehicles pulled up in front of the house.
The police got on a loudspeaker, executing a warrant for Donald Leon Howard, 31, on charges of drug possession, drug paraphernalia possession and tampering with evidence. Howard had racked up a rap sheet in several counties throughout the state, mostly related to drugs. The police asked all to come out of the house with their hands up.
Dobrowolski moved closer to the window, taking out his phone to take pictures. There was a clear view, unobstructed by cars, of the numerous officers who were getting in position and of the house across the street. Four adults came out and surrendered to police.
A fifth individual, identified as Howard, closed the door and fired several rounds, seemingly indiscriminately, through the front window.
“I heard, ‘Pop!’ and the next thing you know, drywall is flying through my house.”
The wall less than 2 feet away from Dobrowolski’s left ear exploded, as a bullet blasted through it. No one was hit by the bullet as it ricocheted off the inside wall, but Dobrowolski said he was hit by the drywall. Another bullet was lodged in the front door of Dobrowolski’s house, one ricocheted off the car parked in the driveway, leaving a dent in the paint. One more hit the outside wall of Dobrowolski’s daughter’s room and another hit a pillar in front of the doorway under an overhanging roof. 
Dobrowolski grabbed his family and tried to get everyone into a bedroom at the far side of the house, far from the window and the street.
“When that first bullet starts flying through the house, I didn’t care if I got hit, because when I grabbed them, I just pulled,” Dobrowolski said. “My back to [the house across the street], pulling them in front of me, through the house. I just grabbed them and squeezed them and yanked them straight into the bedroom. And then I threw them on the floor in the far, far corner. I grabbed the mattress and tossed it on top of them.”
For the next four hours, the YCSO, joined by other agencies including the Cottonwood Police Department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, engaged in a standoff against Howard. At one point, Howard was reportedly in communication with a negotiator, and seemed to consider giving up, but backed out of it and fired more shots.
Officers set up on the Deardorts’ roof, diagonally across from the house. Police fired tear gas-type canisters into the house through the windows and a sliding door. A DPS helicopter hovered overhead. The Verde Valley SWAT team showed up, along with a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle.
“It’s a life-saving piece of equipment,” CPD Chief Steve Gesell said.
The police used the MRAP to ram the garage of the house, creating an opening they could use aside from the front door. Howard fired several rounds at the armored vehicle. One of his bullets lodged itself mostly through a pillar in front of the doorway.
Dobrowolski crept from the bedroom to a window at the front of the house, where he watched and videotaped the scene. He said later that he felt safer knowing he could see what was going on. He said that it gave him a feeling of control.
After watching for hours, Dobrowolski heard a single gunshot and saw a brief flash of light inside the room Howard was firing from. According to the YCSO, Howard died from a selfinflicted gunshot wound at 10:26 p.m. Police sent in a small remote-controlled camera robot to locate Howard before sending in officers.
Desert Jewel residents were quick to praise the police response to the incident.
“There were so many police out there you figured they had it under control,” Sharen Deardort said. The Deardorts said they were happy to let police on to their roof when asked. “I felt sorry for the policemen — they were lying on the ground behind the vehicles while the guy was shooting at them. I was hoping none of them would get shot. But we never felt unsafe or anything.”
“They did their job and they did it well,” Dobrowolski said. He stressed that after some unpleasant interactions with the YCSO before, compliments for the agency did not come easily. “But they did their job properly, and they held immense amounts of restraint on their part, and showing some grace in the situation. They did their job and they recognized that this guy — he’s not here to be on a murderous rampage. He’s dealing with something, and they recognized it immediately. And they handled it like they should have.”
Still, neighbors expressed some complaints with how the police interacted with local residents. In a YCSO press release after the shooting, as soon as shots were fired, “deputies began evacuating homes in the vicinity of the suspect and a Code Red Emergency Notification was issued to the general neighborhood with instructions to shelter in place.” Residents flatly refuted this.
“They did not come knocking on our doors,” said Scott Dadabo, another nearby resident. “You knew something was going on. I’m surprised they didn’t say anything.”
Dobrowolski said that despite his house being hit with bullets, the police said nothing to him until after the incident was over. The Deardorts said that they were only contacted by the police to ask about whether they could access their roof, not to inquire about their safety.
Residents disputed claims by the YCSO that officers did not fire on the house, believing they heard shots fired from across the street.
Dobrowolski kept his kids home from school on Thursday after a sleepless night and brought them to therapy that afternoon.
“It will catch the kids tomorrow, Sunday or Monday,” Dobrowolski said on Friday. “It’ll really flood into them. But right now I think everybody’s still a bit numb and shocked.”
“I was doing real good until last night I started having a reaction,” Sharen Deardort said. “Anxiety, and crying. I feel like I had that post-traumatic syndrome last night. I think what triggered it was I heard on the news about those people being shot in California. And when you could hear the gunshots, I could hear them here, and it just reminded me of it.”
“I was glad these guys were on our roof, because I figured if that guy got out in the neighborhood, they could easily have somebody at our house, watching,” Deardort said.
For Dobrowolski, while he still feels shaken, his main emotion after the ordeal is sadness, far more than anger, for Donald Leon Howard.
“I know mental illness, I know drug addiction. I know all that stuff all too well,” Dobrowolski said. “I’m sad that he honestly felt he had nothing left. It’s a really awful feeling in life, to feel like you have no hope left, and this is the only way out.”
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
