A six-hour long standoff in Lower Manhattan ended Wednesday after police determined that the suspect they were looking for was not in the apartment.

The police are currently looking for a man named James Sider, who is wanted in connection with a 2010 murder of a Pace University student. Police surrounded the suspect’s mother's apartment on Wednesday, but she refused to open the door for the officers.

Though the officers had a warrant, they did not force themselves into the apartment in case the mother, who is in a wheelchair, or the other occupants, kids between 12 and 19 years old, were speaking under duress. The officers had to proceed cautiously to ensure the occupants were unharmed by Sider if he had been in the apartment.

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“We were talking to the mother and it just took several hours to establish that he was not inside,” said Paul Brown, the chief spokesperson for the police department.

Sider is believed to have had a hand in the murder of Max Moreno, who was a 21-year-old student from New Jersey.

On the day of his death, Moreno sold marijuana to a man and a woman, and shortly after they left, two masked men entered his apartment and demanded money. When Moreno refused, one of the men shot him in the head.

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Both masked suspects, Randy Colon and Raymond Rizzo, have been caught and charged with murder. Police said Wednesday that Sider is believed to have been the man who purchased marijuana moments before Colon and Rizzo entered the apartment. Police believe Sider purposely left the door unlocked after he left as part of a set up.

Sources: New York Times, CBS Local

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