LEWISTON — Shots were fired Tuesday afternoon along Pine Street in what police described as a drive-by shooting just after 3 p.m.
Seven hours later, a suspect was taken into a custody after a long standoff that brought the Maine State Police Tactical Team to Elm Street in massive numbers.
The suspect, who appeared to be a young man, came out of the house with his arms raised as state police used a public address system to guide him toward waiting troopers.
Two others had come out of the apartment house at 25 Elm St. about an hour earlier. It was not clear late Tuesday night if all of them were believed connected to the shooting on Pine Street.
The arrest brought to a close a standoff that had begun around 5 p.m. when Lewiston police descended on the Elm Street home after their investigation into the shooting led them to the suspects.
Nobody was hurt in the shooting.
Shortly after 3 p.m., police were called out to the area of Pine Street, near the intersection of Horton Street, after callers reported hearing up to 10 shots fired in the area.
Witnesses said it appeared that someone in a dark-colored SUV had been firing at a group of men standing outside Webb’s Market. Nobody was struck by gunfire, but the neighborhood was once again left rattled by the thunder of gunfire in the middle of the afternoon.
One woman said she was walking her dog on Pine Street when she heard a series of gunshots. A woman who lives near Webb’s said she heard at least a half dozen shots before the driver of the SUV sped away. Others reported hearing as many as 10 shots.
Police said the people who were shot at on Pine Street also fled the area before police arrived.
Police who responded to the scene fanned out across the downtown in search of suspects. A short time later, an investigation led them to the apartment house on Elm Street, where it was believed the suspects were holed up.
Police blocked off Elm Street at Main Street and surrounded the building, taking cover behind their cruisers and a dumpster across the street, with rifles and pistols drawn.
As the standoff developed, tenants of nearby homes were unable to return to their apartments. One man said he had just driven 15 hours from Canada with two sick children. With police blocking access to his home — next door to the apartment where police believed the suspects were hiding — he was forced to retreat to his car on nearby Whipple Street.
That man and two others who live in the neighborhood said the apartment building police were focused on has been the scene of suspicious activity in recent months. There were frequent visitors to one of the apartments there, they said, and a lot of young people coming and going at all hours.
Several neighbors said a woman and two children were sent out of the apartment building around the time that police were first arriving on the scene.
“We are using an abundance of caution due to the potential of weapons involved,” Lewiston police Lt. Derrick St. Laurent said about an hour into the standoff. “We hope this will end peacefully.”
Just after 10 p.m., St. Laurent said that with suspects in custody, police were preparing to search the Elm Street apartment house as their investigation continued.
The gunfire on Tuesday follows a shooting Saturday afternoon in which a local man was struck twice and hospitalized. That shooting also remained under investigation.
No arrests were made in either shooting by early Tuesday night.
