A 40-year-old man is in custody after he fired shots at his girlfriend, barricaded himself in a duplex and triggered a SWAT standoff for hours Friday morning in southwest Atlanta, police said.
Labrinzo Stephens has been charged with aggravated assault, battery, obstruction of officers and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, Atlanta police Officer Stephanie Brown said.
Brown said Stephens has three additional warrants issued by other jurisdictions but did not specify the charges or locales.
Friday’s incident started with a domestic dispute call about 2:30 a.m. When officers got to the scene in the 1000 block of Arlington Avenue, “they were met by a female who advised that her boyfriend had shot at her,” Atlanta police Lt. Christian Hunt said.
Officers tried to contact the man, but he barricaded himself inside one of the units in the duplex and refused to comply with requests to come to the door.
“We believed he possibly still had the weapon with him,” Hunt said.
About a dozen SWAT and armored vehicles were on the scene at one point as negotiators tried to get the man to come out of the residence.
“They actually had guns on us,” resident Jeanna Sykes told Channel 2 Action News. “And when they realized our houses were separate and there wasn’t a way for him to get to our house, they thought we were helping them or something and told us to leave.”
The duplex was evacuated, and Lee Street was blocked to traffic, police said.
Officers ultimately used pepper gas to gain entry to the home. No one was in the residence with the barricaded man, and no shots were fired.
The man and the officers on scene were not injured.
It is unclear what triggered the initial dispute and the gunfire.
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