Police arrest armed man barricaded in apartment

A man described as mentally troubled was subdued with pepper spray and arrested yesterday after police said he fired 10 to 12 shots at officers and holed up for hours in a Dorchester apartment. He refused to leave despite the pleas of relatives and police negotiators.

District 11 police Captain John Greland said a squad car and an ambulance were dispatched to 41 Alpha Road yesterday morning in response to requests from relatives of William Blige, 26.

Greland said the relatives told police that Blige was refusing to take medications prescribed to control his psychiatric ailments.

When officers and emergency medical personnel entered the second-floor apartment where Blige was staying, Greland said, the man fired 10 to 12 shots at them.

The officers pushed the medics out of the building and called for assistance.

Scores of regular patrolmen and heavily-armed special operations officers flooded the area, closing streets to vehicles and pedestrians in about a four-block radius of the house.

Police negotiators attempted to persuade Blige to surrender, but he made no response to their efforts to communicate with him by telephone and through the door of the apartment.

He also did not respond to an anguished appeal from an aunt who begged him over a police megaphone to come out.

Police then fired numerous rounds of pepper spray into the apartment and brought Blige out.

Blige was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and possession of marijuana, police said.

CHARLES A. RADIN