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“You’re not taking me,” Joseph LaRocco told police called to Ramapo Brae Lane just before 10 o’clock this morning.
He then ran back inside the townhouse in the complex, on an oval-shaped road cut into the foot of Stag Hill in the Ramapo Mountains and barricaded the doors.
Members of the Bergen County Police Department SWAT team were trying to end the incident peacefully since Mahwah police summoned them around 10:30.
At no point did they believe Rosa LaRocco was harmed or in any danger. As it turned out, that was because they considered her complicitous in the standoff.
Records show the LaRoccos have lived there since 1996.
The intial call came in to the Emergency Call Center in Mahwah at 9:56 of the man and his wife arguing. He was believed to be holding a knife, the caller said.
When police arrived, he backed his way and barricaded the residence, Mahwah Lt. Stuart Blank said this afternoon.
Neighboring homes were evacuated, and then the SWAT team moved in.
The somewhat remote Ramapo Brae development, built nearly 25 years ago, has nearly three dozen units or so owned by low- to moderate-income families, and 54 public housing rentals.
Check back for more details.
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