PROVIDENCE — The police have acknowledged that an armed home invasion occurred on Doyle Avenue on the East Side 2 1/2 weeks ago and that a woman was forced to disrobe during the crime.

But three of the four alleged culprits — they are members of a West End street gang — have been arrested and are being held at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Maj. Stephen Campbell said yesterday.

“This is a very serious crime,” Campbell said. “It was a difficult investigation because there wasn’t a clear direction” to take. “It was really just keen investigative work” that paid off in good arrests.

Fingerprints taken at the scene of another break-in, in Silver Lake, led to the victims’ identification of part-time janitor Dennis J. McDonald, 17, of 383 Sayles St., South Providence, as a youth who wielded a handgun during the home invasion, according to Campbell.

The incident occurred shortly before 10 p.m. Oct. 12. Two of the three tenants of a second-floor apartment at 38 Doyle Ave., Michael Fetta and his girlfriend, Mia Shaffer, both 24, were at home when they heard a crash. Four men had kicked in the rear door of the apartment, one of whom was armed with a gun.

They were looking for money, drugs and drug paraphernalia, the police said, but could not find any. Asked if there actually were drugs in the apartment, Campbell declined comment. Instead, the invaders settled for electronic equipment, according to a police report.

Fetta was forced to lie face down on the floor, and Shaffer fled to a bedroom and locked herself in. That door was kicked in, too, and Shaffer was taken to another bedroom, where she was forced to strip naked and then join Fetta face-down on the floor, the police related.

Shaffer was in fear for her life but she was not sexually assaulted, Campbell said, and detectives do not know why she was forced to strip.

One robber, according to detectives, repeatedly demanded of Shaffer, “Any other merchandise? Any other merchandise?”

After about 10 minutes of ransacking the apartment, the robbers forced the pair into a closet, uninjured, and shoved some things in front of the closet in order to make it difficult to open the door.

When they believed the robbers had left, Fetta and Shaffer pushed their way out of the closet and ran to the McDonald’s restaurant at the University Heights shopping center, where they called the police.

Among the items listed as stolen were a desktop computer with 20-inch monitor, a laptop computer, an external computer hard drive, two cell phones, two iPods, a digital video camera and a PlayStation 2 console.

Neither victim knew the robbers, according to detectives, but a break-in two days later, at 20 Sanford St., Silver Lake, led to the solution of the crime, Campbell said.

Detectives Patricia Cornell and Thomas Masse lifted fingerprints at the scene of the break-in that were said to be those of McDonald, a member of the Hanover Street Boyz gang whose appearance matched the description of one of the East Side robbers. When Fetta and Shaffer were shown a photo array, they identified McDonald, Campbell related.

Two patrol officers went to the Fox Point Recreation Center, where McDonald was working as a janitor, and arrested him. He was charged with first-degree robbery, burglary and possession of a firearm while committing a crime of violence.

McDonald also is charged with breaking and entering into the house of Marleny Batista, at 20 Sanford, where he allegedly used a pry bar to open a rear door and stole a computer game and a DVD player. Cranston police also have a charge of breaking and entering pending against McDonald.

Further investigation led to the apprehension of two more suspects in the East Side invasion who are alleged Hanover Street Boyz: Moises A. “Paco” Perez, 19, whose home address was not immediately available, who was arrested at his job at the Lowe’s home improvement store in Cranston, where he mixes paint; and Kenneth Minier, 17, of 204 Longfellow St., Wanskuck, who was arrested at his home.

Both were charged with first-degree robbery, burglary, possession of a firearm while committing a crime of violence, and conspiracy to commit burglary.

The police have recovered a firearm but Campbell said it remains to be determined whether it was the one used in the home invasion.

The major praised the work of Detective Sgt. William Dwyer, who is leading the investigation, Detective Angelo A’Vant and others assisting in the investigation, and said it was a prime example of intradepartmental coordination, in which officers pool their knowledge about the criminal element.

gsmith@projo.com