By Robert Mills
Lowell Sun
ACTON, Mass. — Acton Police called in a state police SWAT team and bomb squad unit last night after a 59-year-old woman barricaded herself inside her apartment and claimed to have a rifle and a bomb with her.
Several residents of other apartments in the woman’s building were evacuated for several hours.
Authorities would not immediately say what time, or why, they went to the 14 Strawberry Hill Road apartment of Pamela Lang, 59.
But State Police said that by 6 p.m., a crisis-negotiation team had already “spent several hours” attempting to talk Lang into surrendering.
At 6 p.m., authorities decided to force entry into Lang’s apartment and subdued her with a “less-than-lethal weapon system,” according to a statement released by the State Police Office of Media Relations.
State Police and Acton Police would not say what type of weapon was used.
Lang was taken into custody about 6 p.m., and taken to an undisclosed local hospital for evaluation.
Police recovered a pellet gun in her apartment.
Samantha Towle, who lives in the same building, said she saw firetrucks when she left her apartment to go to the store yesterday afternoon, and then was barred from returning.
“We had no place to go,” she said. “It makes you think about what kind of people live in this building.”
Towle said she has lived in the apartment complex for a few months.
State Police said Acton Police will file “appropriate criminal charges,” but did not say what those charges will be.
Police refused to release any other information last night.
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