WESTFIELD – Two Holyoke men were arraigned in Westfield District Court after an early morning incident Tuesday sent a resident fleeing his Frederick Street apartment in fear via a window.
City police were dispatched to a Frederick Street apartment after a 12:21 a.m. caller reported that her cousin had called her because there were “three men with guns attacking him.”
Officers Efrain Luna and Juanita Mejias arrived within seconds of each other and were soon joined by officers Christopher Coach, Andrew Cekovsky, and Timothy Fanion.
Mejias reports that the officers spoke with a male party who had been staying at the apartment who said that when he opened the door in response to a ringing doorbell shortly after midnight two men pushed their way inside.
He said that he only got a good look at the first man who entered and said that man was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt which covered his face.
He said the man had his left hand in the front pocket of his hoodie and was motioning as if he had a weapon when he told him to get on the ground.
The victim said that he was in fear for his life and did so but shouted a warning to a resident who was sleeping in another room.
He said the man stood over him wile a second intruder went past him to a bedroom.
The victim said that when the two men left, he looked for the other resident but found the bedroom empty and a window open.
Mejias reports that the second occupant was found and said that he had been in bed when he heard the warning the other man yelled so he jumped out a window and hid behind a bush.
He said that, because he speaks little English, he called a relative who also lives at the address and she called police from her workplace.
Police were told that the two men had ripped a television from its mount on a wall without any effort to remove it without damage.
Officers began a search for the suspects and found a vehicle parked in the neighborhood which is not usually there.
Police later reconstructed the events following the intrusion with the help of a statement by a woman the suspects had reportedly called after they fled.
In her statement, the woman said that she had been called by her boyfriend, subsequently identified as Carlos H. Alvarez, 27, of 10 Bristol Place, Holyoke, who asked her to come get him because his car had been stolen.
She said that when she found him he was in the company of a man she did not know.
The second man was later identified as the second suspect, Jesus Torres-Vega, 35, of 103 High St., Holyoke.
The woman said that Alverez said that he would drive and then drove to Frederick Street where she saw his vehicle.
She said that Alverez told her to get down out of sight and she saw a police officer.
Mejias reports she found the two suspects hiding in the car and they were taken into custody.
She reports that Alvarez said that he had driven to the apartment, which belongs to his estranged wife, with Torres-Vega and that Torres-Vega had entered it.
Mejias said that Alvarez’s vehicle was found nearby and she observed a television in the back seat which the resident identified as the one torn from the wall of her daughter’s bedroom causing damage to the wall.
Both men were arraigned in Westfield District Court on Tuesday on charges of putting a person in fear by entering in the nighttime, larceny from a building and malicious destruction of property valued at more than $250.
Alvarez was held without right to bail pending a dangerousness hearing Wednesday but that hearing was continued until Friday because a Spanish language interpreter was not available.
Torres-Vega was held in lieu of $3,000 cash bail but his bail on a charge of assault and battery pending in the Holyoke court was revoked and he was held without right to bail in that case.
