WESTFIELD – A Springfield man was held in lieu of $100,000 cash bail yesterday after a Saturday incident in Huntington which saw the State Police Special Tactical Operations team utilized on Searle Road.
A spokesperson from the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, Mary Carey, reported yesterday afternoon that a team of malefactors used a ruse to get a Searle Road resident out of his home where he could be set upon by crow bar wielding assailants and robbed in what she pointed out was not a random event.
Carey reports that a female party knocked on the door of the victim Saturday morning and said she had a problem with her car.
The resident apparently attempted to help the woman but, Carey reports, when he returned to his home with the woman, he was beset by two masked men who “struck the resident on the head and body with crow bars” while demanding money and marijuana, Carey reports.
The resident was able to flee from his assailants and was assisted by a neighbor.
He was transported to Baystate Medical Center by Westfield Fire Department ambulance where, Carey reports, he was treated for “a broken arm and multiple lacerations to his face and skull.”
In Huntington, one suspect, later identified as Andrew J. Przybyla, 26, of 14 Lorraine St., Springfield, approached the neighbor while holding bags of contraband from the residence and brandishing a handgun but turned away and fled on foot while his two confederates fled in the car.
Carey does not explain how Przybla was apprehended but a representative of the State Police Office of Media Relations said yesterday morning that the tactical team was called to duty.
The website of the Special Tactical Operations (STOP) Team notes that the team “is prepared to respond at any time to any crisis statewide involving the use or threatened use of deadly force.”
The examples cited on the website of challenges the team is prepared to meet include “wooded searches for armed subjects.”
Przybla was taken into custody and arraigned yesterday in Northampton District Court on charges including breaking and entering in the daytime to commit a felony while armed, home invasion, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, armed robbery while masked, larceny of a drug and assault with a dangerous weapon.
Bail was set at $100,000 which, the probation department reports, Przybla did not immediately post.
He is due in court Feb. 12 for a probable cause hearing, Carey reports.
