// a href = ./ //

The residents in one metro-east neighborhood are back in their homes after a standoff in Troy, Illinois forced their evacuations. That standoff ended around 2 o'clock this morning when a SWAT-type police unit using teargas entered the home.

It had begun around 10:30 Monday morning. Police say an armed man in his 40s had barricaded himself inside a home in the 500 block of Woodthrust Street. Police say the man had threatened to take his own life, and possible attack police as well.

Police had tried to talk the man out, but moved in after negotiations broke down.

The man was taken to a hospital for observation.

A shake up may be coming to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department -- that is, if Police Chief Sam Dotson has his way.

The chief wants to dismantle and reorganize some specialized units - moving members of the Rapid Deployment Unit into precincts, and putting gang unit detectives under a single command working from the downtown headquarters. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Chief Dotson will ask the Board of Police Commissioners Wednesday for permission to make those changes and to put SWAT, narcotics and drug task force officers under the same command as patrol officers.

Dotson told the paper that the moves will make the department more flexible.

He's also expected to ask for permission to accept donations to beef up hot-spot policing efforts.