ELBA, Minn. — A police shelter-in-place order for a half-mile radius Friday night resulted from concern that man feared to be suicidal had access to an AK-47 combat rifle. For three hours there was a stand-off with police, as the man sat on a residential front porch. In the end David Jerome Byrd surrendered peacefully. He was unarmed, it turned out, deputies said, although he had the AK-47 in his car parked outside. Byrd, age 27 ,who is from Winona, was booked at the Winona County jail within an hour of his arrest. The tentative charge: Assault that inflicted fear in a child. The incident was in the 1200 block of North Main Street in Elba. This is what happened, as pieced together from investigators and other sources:
Byrd. Situation escalated from what he described as playful horsing around with a friend’s children.
> Byrd was roughhousing with two children, both girls, at the home of a friend. This was at the north end of town.
> In the rough-housing a shoelace ended up around one of the girl’s neck, which frightened her. It isn’t clear how much the shoelace was tightened, although marks were left on the girl’s neck.
> Byrd and the woman in the house — either the girls’ mother or an aunt, it isn’t clear — fell to an argument about the roughhousing. The argument escalated.
> Byrd stormed out to his car to cool off.
> The woman called 911 about 6:30 p.m. that she was concerned that Byrd might be suicidal and that he had a military-style rifle in his car.
> As the first officers pulled up, Byrd left his car. There was no weapon visible. He went into sat on the front porch and sat down.
> Deputies kept their distance out of concern that Byrd might be armed.
> Back-up officers arrived from the State Patrol and the sheriff’s crisis-response team. In all, 15 officers responded.
Armored response. Winona County’s crisis response team’s behemoth armored vehicle was driven 22 miles to Elma from its Winona base.
“A textbook resolution”
Jeff Mueller, the deputy chief sheriff, described the operation as “textbook”:
> A show of force contained the crisis within a perimeter.
> Crisis negotiations established contact with the subject.
> A peaceful resolution resulted.
> A shelter-in-place order was issued for one mile through the community, which is hemmed in narrowly by bluffs. There are only four roads in and out.
> At the house: Officers kept their distance because of the woman’s call that he might have a weapon.
> Eventually the crisis-response team’s Lemco BearCat, a 17,000-pound vehicle umbered into Elba from its usual station 22 miles away in Winona. BearCats are a heavily armored police adaptation of mine-resistant vehicle used by the U.S. military in the Iraq war. In some configurations BearCats carry 12 fully equipped soldiers.
> An experienced negotiator with the sheriff’s crisis-response team established telephone communication with Byrd as he sat on the porch, Of ficers remained shielded behind the BearCat and the squad cars that circled the blocked North Main Street.
> Blocked nearby was the intersection of County 26, which links Altura and Plainfield, and State Highway 74, which follows the Whitewater River from St. Charles to Weaver on the Mississippi.
> During negotiations Byrd insisted repeatedly that he was not suicidal.
> The negotiator eventually gained Byrd’s confidence and coaxed him to surrender peacefully.The shelter-in-place order was rescinded. The team cleared the scene about 10:20 p.m.
> The only casualty was a sheriff’s squad car that drove over a fire ring in the rush to establish the perimeter. A tire was pierced.> Quiet resumed to Elba. A half mile up Main Stret the sode-by-side Tony’s Saloon and Mauer Brothers Tavern, weekend revelers had lots to talk about.
> Quiet resumed ub Elba. A half mile up Main Stret the side-by-side Tony’s Saloon and Mauer Brothers Tavern, thebweekend crowd had lots to talk about.
Earlier: Surrender ends Elba police stand-off