BOSTON (WHDH) - A 37-year-old Mattapan man is facing a number of charges following a police standoff that closed part of Boston for about seven hours on Tuesday.
The public was told to avoid the area of Albany Street between East Berkeley and Malden streets in the South End beginning around 9:40 a.m. after officers stopped Ernest Fields on a warrant and then determined that he was armed.
With the gun in hand, Fields made his way onto Rotch Field where several people were said to be playing. All the while, police said he was making threats toward them.
Everyone was safely escorted off the field as more officers, negotiators, SWAT team members, K9 officers and BEST Team clinicians responded to the scene.
After hours of unsuccessful negotiations, SWAT team members deployed what they called distractionary devices while striking him several times with less-lethal rounds, at which time he dropped the .40 caliber Smith and Wesson M&P Shield handgun, according to police. The gun was loaded with one round in the chamber and additional rounds in the magazine.
Fields was placed into cutody and transported by ambulance to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and for evaluation.
In addition to the outstanding warrant for armed robbery and threatening to commit a crime, Fields was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm and carrying a loaded firearm on school grounds.
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