A swarm of people fended off a pair of home invaders on Sunday in north Athens.

One of the would-be armed robbers was severely beaten by as many as 10 people in the home on Pepperidge Lane at the time, according to police.

Police said his accomplice turned and ran.

"They picked a time when they didn't know so many people would be there," said Lt. Mike Tyndell of the Athens-Clarke County police Criminal Investigations Division.

The robbery attempt occurred at about 11 p.m., when someone at the Pepperidge Lane residence answered a knock on the door, police said.

Patrouski Eshundo Hodges, 20, entered the home with a shirt concealing his face and armed with a handgun, police said.

People inside the home immediately "swarmed" and beat him, Tyndell said.

When officers arrived they found Hodges in the home with his face covered with blood, according to police.

The officers saw several people holding a man with a gun against the wall, police said, but it turned out that he was an intended robbery victim and had taken the gun from Hodges when the suspect was being beaten.

Hodges, of Rhodes Drive, suffered a broken nose and other injuries. He was taken by ambulance to Athens Regional Medical Center.

He claimed to police that he had gone to the house to sell marijuana, and that one of the people in the home pulled a gun on him and it went off when he tried to grab it, according to the police incident report.

"Mr. Hodges told me that all the people who beat him up are part of the 18th Street gang and that he would have never come over if he had known that," an officer wrote in the report.

After his release from the hospital, police booked Hodges into the Clarke County Jail on charges of criminal attempt to commit armed robbery and aggravated assault.

Tyndell said Hodges' accomplice also had his face concealed by a shirt and witnesses were unable to provide a description.

Investigators were unsure why the Pepperidge Lane residence was targeted for an armed robbery, Tyndell said.