City police arrested two men Wednesday after a four-hour long standout with SWAT team members who surrounded a West Baltimore rowhouse after a shooting.
Between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., two police officers in the Western District heard “shots and screams” coming from the 1700 block of Harlem Avenue, said Sterling Clifford, the Baltimore police spokesman.
The officers saw several people running from a house including one man who was suffering from a nonfatal gunshot wound.
One officer attempted to enter the house through the front door ? but was blocked by a suspect ? while the other officer ran around behind the house, Clifford said.
A suspect tried to leave through the backdoor of the house, but when he sawthe second officer, he closed the door, barricading himself inside, police said.
Police called in a SWAT and secured the area, posting at least two officers in every direction along the perimeter of the home.
Clifford said police tried unsuccessfully for nearly four hours to negotiate with the men inside the home, before resorting to using tear gas at 6 p.m.
After being hit with tear gas, one man inside the house surrendered to police, Clifford said. Officers then entered the dwelling and arrested a second suspect.
Neither man has been identified.
Clifford said he did not know the reason for the shooting that caused the standoff, but the “likely motive was robbery, probably drug related.”
Four nearby schools were placed on lockdown, and were evacuated, one by one, during the incident.
