SPENCER — Authorities closed four blocks of Salisbury Avenue this morning when a man allegedly beat up his girlfriend and then threatened officers after locking himself in his apartment with three firearms.

About 9:45 a.m., after a nearly two-hour standoff, police stormed through the front door of Unit 8 at Mid-Town Apartments and arrested 53-year-old Alan Clark Drye. They charged him with assault on a female.

Drye, who had been drinking heavily, had struck his girlfriend, Betty Sue Adams, on the left side of her head with a pistol this morning, authorities said. She was taken to Rowan Regional Medical Center in Salisbury.

Authorities delayed entering the apartment because Drye had the pistol and two rifles in the apartment and had told Adams he would “take out any law enforcement officers that tried to stop him,” Spencer Police Chief Lane Kepley said.

When he saw a uniformed officer arrive while he was standing in the doorway of the apartment, he went inside and barricaded the door. A negotiator later called him on the phone inside and talked with him, Spencer Police Capt. Chris Schenk said.

Drye opened the wooden front door to the apartment but not a glass storm door. When officers standing just outside saw him through the glass they entered and arrested him, Schenk said.

“We’re hoping he’s going to just pass out so we can just go in and handcuff him,” Kepley said before police entered the apartment. “It’s kind of a wait-and-see situation. Typically, with one person barricaded inside a building, you don’t want to rush things because they have nowhere to go.”

Adams also told authorities that Drye had rigged her red Mustang so she could not drive it, he said.

Max J. Kent, owner of the apartment complex at 1515 N. Salisbury Ave., said Drye has lived there for about seven years — and shared the apartment with his Adams for about three years.

“I haven’t had any problems from him in the past,” Kent said. “My opinion is, he’s not violent.”

Drye attended Boyden High School and Rowan Technical Institute. He worked for Cannon Mills. According to a wedding notice in the Salisbury Post, Drye first married in 1969 to the former Helen R. Shive. She died in 1981 when she was 37.

Drye was charged in March 1990 with assault on a female and felony possession of stolen goods. After assaulting his second wife, Jane, he fired a gun into the air, reports say. A police investigation found that the gun had been stolen from Catawba County.

In November 1991, Drye’s sister, Colby Malone, was shot and killed in what police suspected was set up to look like a burglary. Police charged Malone’s stepson, John Malone Jr., with the murder, but a jury later acquitted him.

During this morning’s standoff, Residents at Spencer Health Care Center stood on the porch across the highway from the apartments watching. Several business owners and managers stood along the street.

Dennis Reese, administrator of the Spencer Health Care Center, said it wasn’t clear from his office what was going on, except that there were numerous police vehicles and yellow tape across Main Street in front of the nursing home.

He said some employees had difficulty getting in to work because of the road blocks. Police rerouted traffic a block west on 17th and 11th streets to Rowan Avenue.

“My first thought when I saw the tape this morning was something wrong at the nursing home,” he said. “I was relieved to find out it wasn’t the nursing home, but we also have at least one employee who lives up in those apartments.” That employee did get to work safely, Reese said.

Staff writer Sara Pitzer contributed to this article.