Suspect in custody after SWAT team dispatched to Marshalltown, Iowa, police say

The Des Moines Register

Update: Police have named the man arrested in this incident as well as another related arrest.

Less than a week after the delivery of an arrest warrant led to three people being shot in central Iowa, an unrelated warrant execution in the state ended with a SWAT response.

Marshalltown police tried at about 5:45 p.m. to deliver arrest and search warrants to a home in the 800 block of North Fifth Avenue on the city's north side. But Michael Tupper, police chief of the Marshalltown Police Department, said that prompted a tactical-unit operation in the central Iowa town of 27,000 people 45 miles northeast of Des Moines.

A man, who was not identified, was arrested at about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday after refusing for hours to come out to police. Tupper said officers were trying to serve a search warrant in an attempt to find a specific weapon.

"We do risk assessments on all of our search warrants and any time we serve a search warrant that's considered high risk, we use our tactical team," he said. The fact that a weapon was involved led to the tactical unit's response.

Two women were in the home when police approached, but both left quickly. The suspect, a fugitive, was apprehended inside the residence.

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"The male did not want to leave. After several hours of trying to get him to come out, we were able to enter the home and we located him and he was taken into custody," Tupper said.

There is no threat to the community and no other suspect at large related to the standoff, Tupper said. While this incident is over, there is still an ongoing investigation involving the man arrested, so Tupper said he cannot comment on details of the warrant.

Other arrests are possible in the pending investigation. Tupper said no shots were fired and no hostages were taken in the course of Tuesday night's arrest. Detectives were still on the scene looking for firearms late Tuesday night, he said.

Marshalltown police were assisted by the Mid-Iowa Drug Task Force, which is a tactical squad made up of police officers and sheriff's deputies.

"There were no hostages, no shots fired, nothing like that," he said at about 11 p.m. Tuesday. "We just wanted to be careful and thorough and keep everybody involved safe."

The Marshalltown situation comes about five days after three Guthrie County sheriff's deputies and a suspect were injured during an arrest warrant execution in Stuart, Iowa. All four people injured have been released from the hospital, and the 52-year-old man arrested during the incident has been charged with two counts of attempted murder.

Follow the Register on Facebook and Twitter for more news. Tyler Davis can be contacted at tjdavis@dmreg.com or on Twitter @TDavisDMR.

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