Marin hostage's heroism leads to arrest Mill Valley woman calms suspect until help arrives

Tina Humphrey of Mill Valley, who was held at gunpoint on Monday by Jeffrey Boyce, is seen through the open windows of her pickup truck on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. Tina Humphrey of Mill Valley, who was held at gunpoint on Monday by Jeffrey Boyce, is seen through the open windows of her pickup truck on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Marin hostage's heroism leads to arrest 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

(05-01) 09:54 PDT GREENBRAE -- Held at gunpoint in a Greenbrae parking lot by a man who spouted conspiracy theories as he warned that he "already took somebody down," Tina Marie Humphrey did what came naturally - she showed him pictures of her three children.

"I had this weird feeling that I was in the right place at the right time," Humphrey, a 52-year-old Mill Valley contractor, said Tuesday. "I could tell that if I could keep him calm and connect with him, he probably wouldn't hurt me."

Humphrey became a heroic figure in Monday's arrest of a heavily armed Oregon man whose mother had reported that he was on a journey south to the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, with plans to take shelter there from the U.S. government, police said.

The man, Jeffrey Griffin Boyce of Coos County, had carjacked a man in Rohnert Park earlier Monday before heading to Greenbrae, and was wanted for questioning in a homicide Sunday in Oregon, police said. Monday was his 30th birthday.

Boyce had three guns - including a fully automatic AK-47 rifle - along with high-capacity ammunition magazines, hundreds of bullets and a tactical vest, police said.

Humphrey knew none of this as she walked toward her pickup truck at the Bon Air Shopping Center before 7 p.m. Monday. When she passed Boyce and his allegedly stolen BMW station wagon, she said, he looked at her personalized license plate - "BLDRGRL" - and blurted out, "Balderdash."

Humphrey smiled but kept walking. She had just gotten into her pickup, she said, when Boyce opened the door, pointed a gun at her and ordered, "Move over." Humphrey responded, "I'm not going anywhere with you."

'Unbelievable calm'

Instead, Humphrey said, she engaged Boyce in conversation - saying, "What's wrong?" and "What do you need?" - while stepping out of her truck and walking with him to the rear. She wanted to be out in the open and hoped a fellow shopper would notice her plight.

"I had an unbelievable calm come over me," she said. "I felt that if I could make him feel like I was not a threat to him, he might calm down - and he did. I think I had him so calm, though, that no one noticed."

Boyce put the gun - police said it was a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol - in the left pocket of his jeans, Humphrey said, but kept fingering it. For about 15 minutes, she said, he spoke of paranoid conspiracies, while she tapped into training she once did in dialectical behavioral therapy, which is used to manage emotions.

"He's getting antsy, talking about how he's going to die anyway," she said. "He said, 'I already took somebody down.' "

Humphrey told Boyce, "Let me show you something." She retrieved her cell phone from her truck and found pictures of her three grown children.

"I needed to distract him and make sure he knew I wasn't a threat," she said. "He relaxed a bit."

Finally, a man walked by in the lot. Humphrey said she told Boyce, "Hang on just a second," then moved toward the stranger and said, "He has a gun. I'm his hostage. I need your help."

Frightening warning

The man walked over and talked to Boyce as well, Humphrey said. But when he pulled out his phone, she said, Boyce warned, "If you use that thing, it's the last thing you're ever going to do."

When Boyce dropped some keys and a lighter, the man slipped away and called police. A minute or two later, Humphrey said, sirens rang out and Boyce told her, "You shouldn't have done that. I'm going to take you down with me."

Humphrey was scared to be with Boyce when police pulled up. So she turned and walked away.

"I was praying he wouldn't shoot me in the back," she said. But Boyce fled in the other direction.

Cpl. Sethi Jervan of the Central Marin Police Authority said Boyce was soon spotted in the yard of a nearby home. He surrendered without incident and was being held without bail at Marin County Jail on suspicion of six felonies, including attempted carjacking and false imprisonment.

One officer later told Humphrey she might have a future as a hostage negotiator.

"It's obvious her calm demeanor de-escalated the situation," Jervan said. "It was incredibly brave of her."

Jervan said the pistol was found in Boyce's pants pocket, while a fully automatic AK-47 was recovered from the BMW.

Stolen car

The car was stolen from a man in Rohnert Park, police in that city said. Sgt. Aaron Johnson said Boyce pulled a gun on the man in the Mountain Shadows Plaza parking lot at 4:30 p.m., ordered him to drive to the nearest church, then had him drive back to the shopping center.

Boyce then grabbed two guns from his Ford pickup truck, put them in the man's car and drove away, Johnson said. He said officers responded and found hundreds of bullets, six 30-round magazines, a loaded .22-caliber rifle and a tactical vest in the truck.

It was the end of an odyssey that apparently started over the weekend, when Boyce's mother last heard from him in Oregon. She went to the Coos County sheriff's office Monday to report that her son had been displaying paranoid and psychotic behavior, and had told her someone had bugged his house and truck and was trying to kill him.

He also told her he was heading to the Russian Consulate in San Francisco to ask for asylum, she told authorities.

It's not clear how Boyce obtained the AK-47. Federal law prohibits most civilians from owning fully automatic weapons.

No arrest history

But Boyce probably could have bought other guns legally, said Coos County sheriff's Sgt. Pat Downing. He said there was nothing in his history - such as a felony arrest, a restraining order or an involuntary psychiatric hold - that would have made him ineligible to buy a gun under federal or Oregon law.

In fact, Boyce has been able to carry concealed firearms since June, when Coos County Sheriff Craig Zanni granted his request for a permit.

"In Oregon, sheriffs are bound to give out the permits unless there's a reason not to," Downing said. "We have to show there's a real issue."

Boyce also would have had little difficulty buying magazines holding 30 rounds. While California bans magazines holding more than 10 rounds, there are no such restrictions in Oregon.

Police were saying little Tuesday about Boyce's cryptic reference to taking "somebody down."

San Francisco police Capt. Greg McEachern said the Oregon State Police indicated they "wanted to talk to (Boyce) about a homicide that had occurred in Oregon." But he had no details about the case, and Oregon State Police officials declined to discuss the matter.