UPDATE 10:30 a.m. Friday: The suspect was booked into the Bi-State Jail about 11 p.m. Thursday. No new charges have been from Thursday's incident. His only charges are for the four outstanding warrants. Bond was set this morning on all those charges Aggravated Robbery $100,000; Evading Detention $10,000; Possession of a Controlled Substance, $10,000; and Assault with Bodily Injury (Family Violence) $5,000. Total is $125,000. He remains in the Bi-State Jail.
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A man is in custody after emerging from a standoff at a Richmond Road apartment complex where a SWAT team was on scene for more than three hours on Thursday.
Thomas Earl King Jr., 23, was taken into custody about 8:15 p.m. Thursday and taken to a hospital because he had been exposed to pepper spray and tear gas.
The incident started about 1:32 p.m. Thursday when King allegedly ran from Texarkana Arkansas Police Department officers near a pawn shop on State Line Avenue.
Texas-side police received information King was allegedly in a unit at Ridgewood Apartments, 1410 Richmond Road, about 2:05 p.m., said Shawn Vaughn, Texarkana, Texas Police Department spokesman.
"Apparently he knew he had warrants," Vaughn said.
SWAT was called because other people were in the apartment and were not answering.
"There were some concerns for their safety, there were young children We weren't sure if they were being held involuntarily. We had to make sure they were OK," Vaughn said.
The adults and children came out of the apartment about 5:30 p.m.
"Based on information from the two adults that came out of the apartment, we learned they had put him (King) in an air conditioning duct," said Vaughn.
The two adults who came out of the apartment apparently screwed the vent into the wall, trapping King in the space for an undetermined amount of time.
"So we became concerned that the reason he was not coming out was that he may be stuck inside and unable to come out," Vaughn said.
The man who came out of the apartment faces an evading charge as well because he was with King as they allegedly fled from the State Line Avenue area. His identity was not known at presstime.
A robot was put into the apartment to determine King's whereabouts and found the the vent was in fact open.
However, King was still not responding.
SWAT officials put King's grandmother and father on a megaphone to talk him into coming out but received no response.
"They put some pepper spray in there to try to get him to come out. After 10 minutes, there was no response so they deployed two rounds of tear gas in the apartment and about five minutes later he came out of where he was hiding and was taken into custody," Vaughn said.
There were no injuries to King, officers or the people and the children who were in the apartment, Vaughn said.
The charges King will face as a result of the incident were not immediately available, but Vaughn said previous Texarkana, Texas, felony warrants King has include aggravated robbery, possession of a controlled substances and evading.
He also had a misdemeanor assault with bodily injury family violence warrant.