Police found Sutherland on a mattress with loaded firearm under his pillow.
Lamont SutherlandSPRINGFIELD – Detectives, seeking a wanted felon in the South End Wednesday morning, didn’t get their man after knocking on the front door of an apartment where they believed he was staying.
That knock - on the door of the second floor apartment at 69 Central St. - yielded, however, the arrest of another suspect allegedly armed with a loaded semi-automatic handgun and in possession of 72 bags of heroin, crack cocaine and marijuana.
Sgt. John M. Delaney said detectives Michael Goggin and Robert Bohl of the department’s warrant apprehension unit thought they saw the suspect they were originally seeking peer out the window after they knocked on the door and announced themselves at about 7 a.m.
When nobody answered the door, they entered with a passkey, searched the apartment and inside a bedroom found a man face down on a mattress with his hands under the pillow, Delaney, aide to Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet, said.
When Goggin and Bohl ordered the man to show his hands, he moved to hide something and the officers grabbed his hands. Underneath the pillow they found the .25 caliber handgun, Delaney said, adding that the detectives then found the drugs on the bed, Delaney said.
The man who peered out the window closely resembled, but was not the sought-after suspect, and was not arrested, Delaney said.
The man on the bed, Lamont Sutherland, 26, of 48 Cherry St., was charged with possession of a firearm without a license, possession of ammunition, possession of a firearm while in commission of felony, improper storage of a firearm, possession of heroin with intent to distribute, possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute and violation of a drug-free school zone (Milton Bradley School).