A man is in police custody following a two-day standoff at a hotel on the University of Minnesota campus.
The 38-hour standoff began early Monday after police went to the Graduate Minneapolis hotel to conduct a welfare check on 43-year-old Rashad Bowman at the request of his relatives. Bowman had a felony arrest warrant for a nonviolent “white-collar crime” in Maricopa County, Ariz., reports The Star Tribune. An acquaintance of Bowman’s says he was wanted for printing checks.
Police say Bowman claimed to be armed and relatives said his handgun was missing. He began setting small fires and threatened to burn down the building. A 40-year-old woman, who has not been identified, was also in the room but was released by Bowman late Monday. Police are not calling it a hostage situation.
Police closed nearby streets, evacuated some hotel guests and shut down a nearby campus recreation center. Classes continued as normal and parts of the hotel remained open.
Mike Kjos, assistant chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, says negotiations were made “from the very beginning” until the “last seconds”. Eventually, SWAT team members used a battering ram to enter the man’s hotel room on Tuesday afternoon. Chemical irritants and flash grenades were previously used but failed to flush him out.
The suspect made “multiple threats that he was going to kill himself and others,” says university police chief Matt Clark. “When the officers rammed the door, there were a number of items including mattresses and other things inside the room stacked against the door. It was very difficult to get through the door. They actually broke the door in half, and rammed the door off its hinges.”
Bowman could be seen hanging out the window several times throughout the standoff. When officers entered the room, Clark says Bowman began climbing out the window and officers backed off. They were able to persuade him to come back inside and arrested him without injury at approximately 1:43 p.m., according to MPR News.
When Bowman was apprehended, police did not find a handgun on him or in the hotel room. He was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The Minneapolis Police Department is leading the investigation and additional local charges are expected to be brought against Bowman.
