|
|
Law enforcement vehicles filled the south end of Ninth Avenue Southwest in Pipestone the morning of Jan. 1 after a local family discovered an intruder in their home. The man was apprehended after a four-hour standoff and no one was hurt. Photo by Kyle Kuphal
A Pipestone family is grateful for the response by law enforcement after they woke to find an intruder in their home the first day of the new year.
Chad Budden said he and his wife, Jackie, had been at a neighbor’s house on New Year’s Eve. At around 11 p.m., their son, Grant, came over and told them he’d heard the police were looking for someone. Shortly after midnight, the couple went home and went to bed.
The next morning, Budden said, Jackie heard a noise in their basement. At first, she assumed it was Grant, whose bedroom is in the basement. Then the wireless internet stopped working and she was on her way to the basement to reset the router when she saw a man, later identified as Marshall Lee Bejarano, 38, of Granite Falls, sitting on the steps.
She asked him who he was and what he was doing in her house and the man told her his name was Marshall and he didn’t know why he was there, according to a criminal complaint filed Jan. 2. She yelled for Chad and the man ran down into the basement.
Budden said he went to the garage to get something to take with him into the basement. He then went and told Grant to get upstairs. Budden thinks Bejarano might have been in another room in the basement at the time.
Bejarano had accessed Budden’s gun cabinet and some of his guns and ammunition had been removed, according to the complaint. It was not clear if he was armed.
“Grant could have gotten up 20 minutes earlier and come up and he’d have been sitting on the steps,” Budden said. “I don’t know if he had a gun or what he was going to do. He could have killed us all.”
Jackie called 911 at 8:03 a.m., according to the complaint, and Budden said officers arrived in about a minute. According to a statement released Jan. 1 by the Pipestone County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded, secured the residence and removed the family to a safe location.
According to the criminal complaint, an officer with the Pipestone County Sheriff’s Office looked down the basement stairs and saw the gun cabinet open, a shotgun leaned up against the wall and ammunition laying on the floor. Officers believed Bejarano was still in the basement and had access to firearms and ammunition, and considered him a barricaded suspect. Law enforcement set up a perimeter around the residence and shouted down the stairs every 10 minutes requesting that Bejarano acknowledge that he could hear them and show himself to them, but received no response, according to the complaint.
The sheriff’s office requested assistance from the H.E.A.T. Tactical Entry Team and other area law enforcement agencies. Members of the H.E.A.T. Team arrived and used a robot and aerial drone to search the basement, but were unable to check two closets. After about four hours of attempting to contact Bejarano, officers entered the basement and “held the hallway” while other officers retrieved the firearms from the basement, according to the complaint. Others searched the basement and found Bejarano in a closet. Officers ordered him to show his hands and exit the closet, but he did not respond to commands and was removed from the closet and taken to the ground.
Budden said no one was hurt during the incident, but there was some property damaged. According to the complaint, officers walked through the basement with the Buddens after Bejarano was taken into custody and Budden observed that the drain valve for their in-floor heating system had been opened and liquid had flowed onto the floor, liquid had been poured over electrical components including surround sound equipment, the deep freeze had been opened and meat was defrosting, and other items had been moved. Budden said he suspected Bejarano had been in their home all night based on the amount of meat that had defrosted in the freezer.
He described the incident as a “scary ordeal.” What he stressed the most, however, was how impressed he was with law enforcement officers, their quick response, the way they treated his family, how professional they were and everything they did.
“The way our police department handled it was amazing,” Budden said. “The risk that they took on their own lives — I think we as a community, we need to start appreciating that more than we probably do because they really do go all out for us.”
He also encouraged people to be diligent, alert and aware, lock their doors and keep an eye out for each other. He said people don’t expect such things to happen in Pipestone, but they can.
“It happens in these towns and we need to realize that,” Budden said. “It’s not just the big cities anymore. It’s anywhere.”
Bejarano was charged with first-degree burglary with a weapon and first-degree burglary of an occupied dwelling, both felonies punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment and a $35,000 fine; first-degree criminal damage to property, a felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine; and possession of firearms and ammunition by a felon, a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to one year imprisonment and a $3,000 fine. Bejarano is ineligible to possess a firearm due to previous convictions, according to the complaint.
He’s being held in Pipestone County Jail and bail was set at $100,000 with no conditions or $50,000 with conditions that he make no contact with the victims, stay away from their residence, neither use nor possess alcohol or drugs, make and maintain contact with an attorney, keep the court and the attorney informed of his current address, make all court appearances and neither use nor possess firearms or dangerous weapons. An initial appearance was scheduled for Jan. 14.