RIO RANCHO, N.M. – It was a scary night for people in Rio Rancho. A man is facing multiple charges after police say he fired a gun hundreds of times. Luckily, no one was hurt. 

KOB 4 spoke with a neighbor who described what it was like to be inside his home, just feet away from where the shots kept coming. 

“I was getting ready to unwind for the night, get ready for bed and I heard two pops. Two loud pops and fireworks are pretty common around here,” said the neighbor.

As the night and those pops continued, he knew those weren’t fireworks.

“You can tell at that point they were automatic shots. You could hear the boom, boom, boom, boom. At that point, I had the first instinct to turn off the light and kind of hear what was going on,” said the neighbor. 

Then, his instinct turned to making sure he and his family were safe. At about 11 p.m., Rio Rancho police showed up after the shots didn’t stop near Sabana Grande and New Mexico State Road 528.

“Officers arrived on scene and heard a large amount of gunfire, there were several hundred rounds of ammunition fired. As a result, a SWAT call out was activated. There were several agencies that assisted us,” said Rio Rancho Police Capt. Jacquelynn Reedy. 

Reedy says Eric Brusstar then shot even more rounds of gunfire at Albuquerque police’s helicopter. 

After an hours-long SWAT standoff, Brusstar was taken into custody. But neighbors say the whole process to get him out was unsettling.

“I realized the gunshot were getting louder, and you would even hear, at times, a difference between gunshots and actually explosives, like boom. And I think that was even more frightful to know that you were getting gunshots, explosives, and you didn’t even know from which direction they were coming from,” said a neighbor. 

But what was more unsettling was when they realized the gunfire was coming from a couple house down.

“We then realized that this was a house down in the cul-de-sac of our road. And realizing that, I think, it was just a couple of houses down, you have your family in the house, your first instinct is survival. And so we were in our kiddos room, we all stayed close, stayed low,” the neighbor said. 

He says he’s just happy no one got hurt.

“I mean, we’re waking up today grateful,” said the neighbor.