UPI
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento deputies say a toddler escaped injury when a SWAT team stormed an apartment where he had been allegedly held hostage for three days.
Anthony Alvarez, 26, was shot and killed Friday night in the rescue operation by Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies who blew two holes in the wall of the apartment that had been the scene of a tense standoff that began Wednesday.
The Sacramento Bee said relieved onlookers cheered when a deputy dressed in combat fatigues carrying 16-month-old Michael Pittman following a brief exchange of gunfire inside the unit.
Alvarez was described as schizophrenic and had been wanted in connection with three robberies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The apartment belonged to a cousin who had put Alvarez up temporarily while he looked for a job and a permanent place to live.
Relatives of Alvarez told the Bee they did not think he would have hurt the boy.
The standoff began officers arrived at the complex to arrest Alvarez. The barricaded suspect was largely uncommunicative during the operation in which a remote-controlled robot was used to shuttle food and pull down the blinds on the window.