Dozens of Eau Claire police officers, including the SWAT team spend almost six hours trying rescue a woman being held against her will at a local hotel.

The standoff started at the Quality Inn on West Clairemont Avenue around 9:00 Monday morning and ended peacefully around 2:30.

Officers say the man holed up in his hotel room only claimed to have a gun. But, officers tell NewsCenter 13 they have to treat the threat as the truth to protect everyone involved.

“It took whole police force to bring me down!"

28-year-old Kevin Kuhn shouted profanities as police escorted him out of the Quality Inn Monday afternoon.

Deputy Police Chief Eric Larsen says Kuhn was belligerent from the time officers first pounded on his door to the time they put him in cuffs.

"He refused to let the girl go. She told us he would not let her go,” Larsen says.

He says another woman called police around 8:30 a.m. and told officers her daughter was in a hotel room with her boyfriend and might need help.

"At first we weren't even sure if he had a female in the room,” Larsen says. “We confirmed that and he indicated he could harm her. We didn't know if he had weapons, but we weren't going to risk her life.

Dozens of officers, including SWAT team members surrounded the backside of the hotel. They evacuated a hotel guest staying in a nearby room and closed off roads while they tried to get Kuhn to let the woman out of the room.

For neighbors, that's when the waiting began:

"It just started with two officers with rifles, then the SWAT team came and we've heard nothing," says Hope Bonander.

"To live so close by, it's scary and to think someone took someone hostage," says Trudy Wik.

Larsen says it took three hours just to get Kuhn talking. Investigators found out the person in the room was not his girlfriend, but a different 19-year-old woman.

Officers talked with Kuhn on and off for another couple hours until they were sure he did not have a gun. That's when they smashed through his door.

"He wasn't open to any negotiations at all and then we started getting concerned about letting it go on with a hostage,” Larsen says. “We decided we could get in safely and so we did.”

Officers are recommending a number of charges against Kuhn, including false imprisonment and a probation violation from a substantial battery charge.

Investigators are also working to figure out what, if any, role drugs played in the situation. Larsen says there was evidence of them in the room.

He says the woman who was in the room with Kuhn knows him and investigators are treating her as a witness.

Kuhn is in the Eau Claire County jail and scheduled to be in court Wednesday morning.