HOUSTON – Two women and a child are safe after a tense SWAT standoff in northwest Houston
HPD SWAT team members responded to a hostage situation at Yale and Tidwell after a man barricaded himself inside an apartment with the three victims.
Wilbert Johnson, 27, was taken into custody about two hours after the standoff began.
The hostages, Johnson's ex-girlfriend, his sister and her 2-year-old son, were not harmed. Johnson's sister lives at the Yale Village Apartments where the standoff took place.
Police say Johnson kidnapped his ex-girlfriend, 26-year-old Brittany Rhodes, Monday morning. She was abducted from a strip center in the 6300 block of Telephone Road.
Relatives say Johnson threatened Rhodes last week but she was too afraid to go to the police.
"He threatened to kill her," said HPD Officer Kese Smith."According to family members, he had a gun."
Friends in Johnson's southeast Houston neighborhood say the couple had been arguing about their three children.
"A lot of people snap. Sometimes you don't know what's going through people's mind," said Delvin Stanford, Johnson's neighbor.
"He say he wanted to see his kids. They playing with his emotions so he do what he gotta do," said Charles Buie, another neighbor.
Johnson was arrested a few months ago and charged with aggravated assault after Rhodes was attacked.
