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UPDATE: Chesterfield SWAT team standoff ends peacefully

Posted at 4:36 PM, Dec 11, 2012
and last updated 2012-12-11 23:33:30-05

CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WTVR)—Shortly after 4 p.m. on Tuesday, SWAT teams and police mobilized in the 7700 block of Belasco Road in the Chesterfield Village Apartment complex.

It was the second afternoon in a row the Chesterfield County Police Department was called out to a neighborhood.  This time, though, things ended peacefully.

Teams suited up, and school buses were re-routed and kids were dropped off at other locations.

A mobile command van was deployed to the scene. Officers were at the apartment to deliver a felony warrant. 

Police surrounded the apartment and the building was evacuated with all people on the scene kept there temporarily.

Neighbors looked on with limited information, while police served the warrant.

“I’ve ever seen anything like it before," said one neighbor who didn’t want to give his name. “They told me it was a high-risk warrant.  After that, I didn't ask much."

For 13-year-old Providence Middle School student Kiara Alexander it was a life-lesson unfolding just a few feet above. She came home to her Chesterfield Village apartment to find officers everywhere.

"They were on balconies, in the trees, blending in into the woods,” she said.  "Whole bunch of police with K-9 dogs. It was a lot of them."

The teen said detectives were asking questions about a neighbor who she said had just recently moved in.

Kiara was  released to her mom who showed up on scene, and together, they and other neighbors watched from a distance until police talked their suspect into giving himself up peacefully.

Shortly before five p.m. the suspect was taken into custody. 

Police wouldn't say who they took into custody or what he was wanted for.  But sources with knowledge of the warrant service tell me it was a “failure to appear” warrant on a felony charge.

And after being evacuated for an hour-and-a-half, people living here say it was the ending they were hoping for.