An image posted by police in reporting the outcome of a barricade situation on Gore Street in East Cambridge. (Photo: Cambridge Police Department via Facebook)

Police ended a tense situation “safely” on Tuesday, taking a 30-year-old Cambridge man into custody after officers entered his Gore Street home, where he was barricaded, said Jeremy Warnick, director of communications and media relations for Cambridge police, in a 10:19 p.m. email.

Residents had been urged by police a little less than two hours earlier to avoid the area around Gore and Sciarappa streets in East Cambridge for its “active barricade situation” after an armed assault involving a man and a female victim on nearby Winter Street in which he used a large knife to cut the victim’s hair. A witness later told police that the two people involved knew each other, Warnick said in a Wednesday update.

The victim was able to escape from the defendant and was found by officers on Sciarappa Street, while the man went into his Gore Street home, police said. After at first refusing medical help, the victim was later taken to a local hospital.

Tactical Units and Crisis Negotiators were brought in and a perimeter secured around around the Gore Street residence.

“Out of an abundance of caution, police have closed the roads in the immediate area” around the Gore Street home, Warnick said in a 8:35 p.m. email. “Please avoid the area as officers attempt to communicate with the individual and peacefully deescalate the situation.”

A loudspeaker was used in an effort to make contact with the barricaded man, and a family member and friend of the family came out to talk with police about the situation. Members of the Cambridge Police Special Response Team later entered the home and took the man into custody, recovering a machete, Warnick said.

When the crisis had passed, the suspect was taken to a local hospital to be evaluated for drug and alcohol use. Once he was cleared from the hospital, officers expected to bring him in for booking and the filing of multiple charges – including armed robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, Warnick said. He will have to go to Cambridge District Court to answer the charges.

The name of the defendant is not being released, Warnick said, “due to the summons and hospitalization for treatment that was not injury-related.”

This post was updated Dec. 7, 2022, with additional details provided by police.