Man in custody after he barricaded himself inside SE Houston house

HOUSTON – The Houston Police Department's SWAT team was called out to a southeast Houston apartment after a man with a hatchet reportedly barricaded himself inside Sunday. He was taken into custody just before 1:30 p.m.

Police tried contacting the man on a loudspeaker but eventually broke a window and threw a smoke bomb in the house. The man jumped out of a rear window from the second floor and was transported to an area hospital.

"Tear gas was deployed and that's when the suspect chose to jump out the second-story window," Kese Smith, with the Houston Police Department, said.

Police said the man first went to a neighbor's residence armed with the hatchet and then fled to a residence on the 3100 block of Webster Road.

The apartment manager, Cheryl Guidry, said it all started at about 8 a.m. when the man started tearing his apartment to shreds. The apartment had smashed furniture and floor boards ripped apart. The man also smashed out several windows in his apartment.

"He was making a lot of noise," Guidry said. "It sounded like he was doing damage to the unit. You could hear boards tearing and breaking."

After destroying his apartment, the man then knocked on two of his neighbors' doors with a hatchet in his hand. The man was complaining that he was hearing voices coming from the floor in his apartment.

That's when one woman called the police.

"She was nervous and scared because he had come to her apartment with a hatchet asking if she had heard the voices," Guidry said.

Six apartments were evacuated after the Houston Police Department's SWAT team was called.

The man is described as a 33-year-old black man. He is being mentally evaluated at St. Joseph's Hospital. Guidry says the man does require medication to stay emotionally balanced and she was told he had been off that medication for several days.


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