By Owen Boss
Staff Writer
BELCHERTOWN - A local man who police say made death threats that prompted the evacuation of a Main Street dental office and lockdown of an elementary school was released on the condition that he stay away from the dental office and Town Hall.
He was released after his arraignment Thursday on charges of threatening to commit a crime.
Police arrested Curtis B. Carroll, 46, of 25 Main St., Wednesday morning after officers were summoned by a town employee reporting that a resident had threatened violence.
According to Belchertown police, at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday, Building Inspector Paul J. Adzima told police that Carroll had just left the building inspector's quarters in the town offices at 2 Jabish St., saying he was going to get a gun and start shooting anyone involved with a landscaping project being completed near his property. Police say Carroll was unhappy about the landscaping project.
Adzima also told police Carroll threatened to hurt employees and patients at the Valley Dentist at 23 Main St., a practice that abuts his Main Street property, and where the landscaping project is under way.
"With the assistance of the Massachusetts State Police, we surrounded the residence of Mr. Carroll and also assisted with dispersing parents and children from the nearby Methodist Church Day Care facility. The Police Department was also facilitating a lockdown with nearby Cold Spring Elementary School," Belchertown officer John Raymer wrote in the press release.
Carroll later drove his Harley Davidson motorcycle through the rear lawn of the Methodist Church and post office "attempting to avoid officers," before being ordered off his bike at gunpoint and placed under arrest in a Main Street parking lot, according to Raymer's press release.
In Eastern Hampshire District Court Thursday, Carroll pleaded innocent to four counts of threatening to commit a crime, and Judge Laurie MacLeod ordered him released on condition that he report to probation once a week, stay away from the dentist's office and Town Hall and forfeit all firearms, according to court documents. MacLeod dismissed charges of assault to murder and assault with a dangerous weapon.
His court records were sealed at the request of his lawyer, Jonah S. Goldsmith of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defender's office.
The landscaping project, which was still being completed Thursday by the Hodgen Landscape Co. of Belchertown, involves the leveling out of a small yard between the Valley Dentist office and Carroll's home and the construction of a small concrete wall between the two properties.
MacLeod ordered Carroll to appear in court for a pretrial hearing on June 21.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.
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