Canoga Park Man Arrested After Standoff : Crime: Police say the gunman held his girlfriend and her four children hostage for five hours. No injuries were reported.

An armed man held his live-in girlfriend and her four children hostage for several hours early Friday until police forced the gunman out of his home with tear gas, authorities said.

There were no injuries during the five-hour standoff, which began about 3:30 a.m., Los Angeles police said.

The alleged gunman, Ron Adams, 43, lived with the victims in a two-bedroom townhouse on the 21000 block of Gresham Street, Police Lt. Steve Zipperman said.

Adams was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, police said.

Several neighbors said Adams and his girlfriend, Paula Primo, 35, often argued, and that police had been at the couple’s apartment twice in the past two months to intervene in domestic disputes.

The most recent incident began early Friday when Adams’ girlfriend phoned police and said Adams was armed with a .38-caliber revolver, and “threatening to injure himself and others,” Zipperman said. Police said Adams was apparently jealous.

When police arrived, they evacuated nearby apartments and called the SWAT team and a hostage negotiator, authorities said.

During the standoff, Primo’s 17-year-old son and his teen-age girlfriend escaped from the apartment’s garage where they had been living, police said. It was unclear whether they had been directly threatened by Adams.

After talking to police, Adams released Primo’s 15-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter, and finally, Primo, authorities said.

“He didn’t have any demands, he just wanted someone to listen to him,” Zipperman said.

But when Adams refused to surrender about 8:15 a.m., the SWAT team fired four tear gas canisters through his window, forcing him outside, police and neighbors said.

Neighbors later said they often heard the couple fighting.

“You can’t sleep at night,” said Michele Thomas, who lives in a townhouse unit behind the couple. “You hear him being loud, you hear her, and then a child starts crying.”

“If there’s seven days in a week, they argue five,” she added.

The apartment’s resident manager, Vickie Smith, said Adams recently lost his job, but Primo had recently gotten a job.

“In the seven-year history of this building we’ve never had a police incident like this,” Smith said. “No theft problem, no break-ins. Domestic disputes, yes, but nothing like this.”