A tense waiting game with police ended peacefully after a Bainbridge Island man was arrested by officers following a domestic violence call that found the man barricaded inside his home — and armed with a loaded big game rifle — for more than three hours Sunday night.

The standoff ended after a regional police SWAT team was called in, and the man was apprehended as he tried to slip out the back door of his home as the SWAT team’s armored police vehicle approached the home.

An officer quickly took the Bainbridge man, 38, into custody just before 9:30 p.m.

“I think we caught him off-guard,” said Bainbridge Police Chief Matthew Hamner.

No shots were fired and no one was hurt, Hamner said.

Police were called to the home on Blue Heron Avenue NE, a 10-home cul-de-sac neighborhood just south of Island Village Shopping Center, just after 5 p.m. Sunday after an argument between a couple allegedly got physical.

The man allegedly threw a butcher knife at the woman, then put his hands on her.

After she said she was going to call police, the woman told officers, the man allegedly told her to “go ahead and call” as he began loading a Holland & Holland .375-caliber rifle, a firearm of notable fame among big game hunters in Africa.

The woman fled the home and told authorities she was afraid he would use the weapon.

Police units flooded the neighborhood just south of High School Road, and Bainbridge officers at the scene quickly called for more help.

Officers from Poulsbo and Bremerton police departments, as well as deputies from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office and a K-9 unit, responded.

Amid reports that the man was armed with a high-powered rifle, the multi-agency Kitsap County SWAT team was called in, while medics and personnel from the Bainbridge Island Fire Department were also dispatched.

Police set up a command center just north of the neighborhood at the Bainbridge Public Library. The full-response SWAT team was activated, and the homes in the neighborhood were evacuated.

Police set up a security perimeter around the home and began waiting. They had no easy way to contact the man — with no cell phone or landline phone access — but had a police negotiator standing by.

The incident ended before any bullhorn was used, however, or any contact was initiated.

As the SWAT team’s vehicle approached the home, the man walked out the back of his home and was met by police. He was not armed at the time and was taken into custody without incident.

Hamner said police had no choice but to use the SWAT team’s armored vehicle, given the high-capacity rifle that the man had in his possession.

“We had no ballistic shields, no bullet-proof vests, nothing that could stop this firearm … except for the vehicle that approached the house,” Hamner said.

“It ended very peacefully and very safely, and that, at the end of the day, is the most important thing,” Hamner said.

Hamner said the man was taken to Kitsap County Jail and booked for second-degree assault.