JACKSON TWP — A township police officer was put in a potentially dangerous situation early Thursday morning when he approached a house and saw a man holding a gun.

Police spent about four hours outside the house while a man inside, who was apparently highly intoxicated, did not respond to their hails, said township Police Chief Terry Seilhamer.

After determining no one inside was in peril, the police left around 4:23 a.m.

A woman, who didn’t give her name and used a disconnected cell phone, called 911 at 12:24 a.m. and asked for the police to do a welfare check on a man at 184 Acorn Lane, Seilhamer said.

“When our officer pulled up a male came out onto the porch and he was brandishing a long gun,” Seilhamer said.

Though he had not been threatened, the officer went back to his car immediately and called for backup.

Three state police officers assisted at the scene as well as officers from the Zelienople, Evans City and Adams Township departments and Harmony EMS.

Police were able to track down the mother of the man’s girlfriend, who said the two had been drinking at her house around 11 p.m. and had a verbal altercation.

Seilhamer said the police guessed the man had fallen asleep and decided it was OK to leave without talking to him.

“Given the fact that the whole call was to check up on the welfare of the male, and we didn’t see anything in disarray and had no criminal offense, it didn’t warrant kicking in a door in my opinion,” Seilhamer said.

An officer talked to a relative of the man Thursday who said he and his girlfriend were sleeping off the incident and had no memory of the police coming to the house.

The man had a gun and was intoxicated, but he was on private property, so he was not charged with anything, Seilhamer said.