Barricaded man arrested in Fort Lauderdale SWAT standoff
A man who barricaded himself in an upscale neighborhood in eastern Fort Lauderdale was arrested Tuesday after an hours-long standoff with a SWAT team that responded to a call about a domestic dispute involving a firearm.
The man, who was not immediately identified, was taken to Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale for a precautionary evaluation, city police said. An unnamed person described as the victim by police was uninjured.
The incident evolved at some point before dawn Tuesday in what is normally a tranquil neighborhood. Police responded to a call at 5:14 a.m. to a home on Northeast 41st Street. The site of the confrontation is on a dead-end street east of Bayview Drive to the northeast of the Coral Ridge Country Club, and several blocks south of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.
Police cordoned off the side street with yellow tape and the SWAT team set up an incident command post to the west of the home. Throughout the day, police vehicles lined both sides of Bayview.
No injuries were immediately reported. But the man, a police department spokeswoman said, was “combative” as officers tried to arrest him.
“While officers were attempting to take the suspect into custody, he was uncooperative and became combative,” spokeswoman Casey Liening of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department said by email. “Therefore, less lethal methods were used by officers to safely take the suspect into custody. As a result, he was transported from the scene in an ambulance escorted by police for the safety of everyone involved.”
The ride to Holy Cross took place about 3 p.m. as a thunderstorm overtook the area.
“He will be booked into jail shortly,” Liening said of the suspect. She said his identity and charges against him would be made public later.
“The victim will not identified and additional details regarding the incident will not be released,” she said.
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