Wellesley police arrested two people Sunday after a SWAT team responded to a public housing complex following a report of an armed robbery, according to police.
The incident stemmed from a 911 call made just before 3:15 p.m. in which a man reported that he had been robbed at gunpoint, Wellesley police said in a press release. He explained that he’d stayed over at an apartment in the Barton Road public housing development and walked to the store to buy some food, but when he returned, he noticed that a bag containing his medication had been removed from his suitcase.
There were three people in the apartment at the time — two men and a woman — and when he asked one of them for his medication back, one of the men pointed a gun at him, police said. The man told the victim he would not be getting his medication back and that he should leave the apartment.
Officers responded to the complex and saw three people in the window of the apartment, but the group did not answer the phone when officers tried to contact them, police said. The apartments in the complex are close together, so police evacuated the rest of the residents as they called in a SWAT team.
Soon, the three people inside the apartment came out one by one, police said. One was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with the incident, one was arrested on an unrelated warrant and one was released at the scene.
The SWAT team then swept the apartment to make sure no one else was inside, police said. The complex’s residents were then permitted to return to their homes.
The police department wrote on social media that the scene had been “resolved peacefully” just after 6:40 p.m. on Sunday. The suspect charged with assault is set to be arraigned in Dedham District Court on Monday.
The victim had stayed in the apartment after meeting some people in Boston on Saturday who offered to let him stay there for $40 instead of renting an Airbnb, The Boston Globe reported. The woman is reportedly the tenant in the apartment, and first man who left the apartment told police “he was just taking out the trash and didn’t know what was going on.”
Additionally, one of the men reportedly had an arrest warrant out against him for traffic violations, the Globe reported. He told police he didn’t want to be taken into custody, but it is unclear which of the three people were ultimately arrested.
No further information about the incident, including the identities of the three people involved, has been released.
