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A San Jose man was arrested Monday in connection with a botched home invasion robbery in South Berkeley, but his alleged accomplice remained on the loose. 

The episode began around 3:30 p.m., when the Berkeley Police Department received a call from a resident reporting that at least two men carrying guns entered an apartment building in the 3200 block of California Street. 

Once inside the building, the men stormed into a ground-floor apartment, occupied by several people who apparently knew the suspects. One of the men then forced a woman at gunpoint to walk upstairs to her apartment, which police say he intended to rob. 

But officers who were nearby quickly arrived on the scene and interrupted the crime in progress in the first-floor apartment, said Police Capt. Bobby Miller. The suspect in the downstairs unit apparently hid his weapon when he realized police were coming in. He attempted to blend in with the other people in the apartment and tried to walk out of the building. 

As the suspect was leaving, another person in the unit told officers to stop him because he was one of the gunmen. The suspect managed to escape from police and fled into the neighborhood. 

His alleged accomplice upstairs, however, did not escape from the scene. Police took 28-year-old Phil Martin Jr. of San Jose into custody. He was booked Monday evening on four charges: home invasion robbery, illegal possession of a concealable handgun, possession of stolen property and parole violation. 

Miller said it appears that the two gunmen specifically targeted the individuals in the apartment, although a possible motive was not immediately known. He did confirm that police have had problems with drug dealing and related crimes in the immediate vicinity. 

After the other suspect fled the scene, police sealed off several blocks near the intersection of California and Woolsey streets to conduct a search, which ended unsuccessfully several hours later. 

Crowds formed at various locations around the cordoned blocks – on bicycles, standing around, talking to friends about the incident on cell phones, sitting in cars – wondering what would unfold next. 

Residents who wanted to return home were forbidden to do so during the incident. As one young man walked from the corner of California and Woolsey, across Woolsey, an officer ran from the intersection, grabbed him and walked him out to California Street. He was not detained. 

Earlier at King and Woolsey a resident wondered if it would be safe to be in her own home nearby. Another woman couldn’t return to her home and her three children. 

A woman whose apartment is in the 1600 block of Woolsey, which was cordoned off, waited on a porch at the corner of King and Woolsey. She was eager to see the standoff end. 

“He ought to up and come out. I want to go to work.” 

Ramiro Duarte, interviewed at the corner of California and Woolsey near his home, said he saw a man run out of the building across Fairview Street. 

“I could see police running after him,” Duarte said. “They almost caught him but he was too fast. I was scared because maybe the guy would come this way.” 

The suspect who fled the scene was described as an African-American male, between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall, with a medium build. At the time he was wearing a mint green T-shirt and knee-length tan pants.