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SWAT team forces suspect out of attic after standoff
By Times staff writer PINELLAS PARK -- Carmen Vega was sound asleep when a sheriff's deputy rapped on her door at 5 a.m., telling her to flee her apartment. A suspect in a series of robberies and home invasions had holed up in the attic of Vega's apartment building, and he was armed with a handgun. Deputies evacuated eight apartments at French Villas on 54th Avenue N near 68th Way in an unincorporated area between Kenneth City and Pinellas Park. After a standoff with the Pinellas sheriff's SWAT team that lasted more than six hours, deputies arrested Justin Sammarco, 21, whose last known address was 12520 102nd Ave., Seminole. Before the standoff, they also arrested Louis Cotto, 20, whose last known address was 6025 47th Ave. N in Kenneth City. Both will be charged with home invasion and robbery, Pinellas sheriff's Sgt. Greg Tita said. They still were being questioned Saturday evening and may be charged with other crimes, Tita said. Both are suspects, Tita said, in a February home invasion and shooting in Clearwater's High Point neighborhood. In that incident, intruders entered a home just before 5:30 p.m. and shot a man in the head. The man survived. The motive, authorities think, was robbery. In the Saturday morning SWAT incident, authorities had received information that Sammarco was at the French Villas apartments. He was armed, Tita said, with a 9mm Glock handgun, the same type of weapon used in the February home invasion. Investigators still were looking for the gun Saturday evening. "We don't know if he lost it or ditched it in the attic," Tita said.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
