WINONA, Minn. – A deputy maced a pajama-clad man walking down East Burns Valley Road, apparently with no effect, but then managed to wrestle him to the ground and take him to the hospital. The deputy had encountered the man while en route a violent break-in attempt at a nearby house. The chain of events began about 10:30 a.m. with a call to police from an upscale section of the East Burns Valley Road, just short of Big Valley Ranch.
The incident
The caller said a man had been yelling and banging on doors and windows and then heaved a brick through two panes of a kitchen window. The caller said the man was screaming over and over: “Let me in. It’s raining outside.” In the house was a husband and wife and two children. The first deputy to arrive found yard furniture smashed and overturned. The kitchen window had been shattered by a large cement brick from along the driveway, the deputy said.
The take-down
A second deputy en route to the house found a man walking down the road in his pajama bottoms. The deputy said he tried to talking to man but he walked right by. To get the man’s attention, the deputy said he grabbed him by an arm but he pulled away. The deputy said he ordered the man to halt but he still didn’t. The deputy shot canned pepper spray at the man but. seemingly oblivious, he kept walking. The deputy physically took him down, into the ditch on the shoulder-less road, and cuffed and carried him to the police cruisier to wait for an ambulance. Ter man was taken to the hospital, a mile away, and placed on a 72-hour hold. The man had a deep cut on the bridge of his nose and bruises on one shoulder and left side of his face. The deputy had minor injuries.
Boozhoo profile
Deputies have recommended that Patrick Stephen Boozhoo, 51, be charged with damaging property and obstructing the legal process. He is well-known in the Ojibwe community for maintaining tribal customs. These included annual wild rice-harvesting in northern Minnesota, which he was passig on to the next generation. Since 2017 Boohoo has lived up East Burns Valley. The family whose house on East Burns Valley Road was attacked said,m however, ttat they couldn’t identify the intruder. It wa a dark and stormy night. Boozhoo has a court record of drunken-driving violations in Wisconsin and one in 2012 for misdemeanor damage to property.