Marshall Area Home Invader Dead Following Standoff
A brazen daylight home invasion near Marshall is over. The suspected perpetrator is dead. No one else was hurt. It could have ended differently. Calhoun County Sheriff’s Deputies were alerted to the intrusion at an occupied home along Division Drive shortly after noon yesterday. The home is located a couple of miles southeast of Marshall. The Battle Creek Enquirer reports a resident called to report someone was trying to break into the home. As deputies arrived, they heard the resident scream. The suspect began shooting at deputies and officers from other departments arriving in support. An Albion police cruiser was damaged. But none of the more than dozen officers were hit by the gunfire from the suspect. The resident escaped the home without injury.
The Eckford Township home was surrounded and tear gas was used to try to get the home invader to surrender. But more shots were fired. It’s not known yet if most, or all shots fired were from the suspect, or whether police returned fire. After more than a dozen rounds of tear gas were fired into the home, the home invasion came to an end with the suspect on the ground just outside the home. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Calhoun County Sheriff Steve Hinkley is not releasing the name of the suspect. But he does say the department believes he is a 47-year-old Battle Creek man who has had a lot of interaction with law enforcement and was on parole. Hinkley says department detectives are trying to determine if the man was also involved in a motorcycle theft earlier in the day along B Drive where a homeowner gave chase to the thief, who ended up crashing the stolen motorcycle about a mile from the scene of the home invasion. Sheriff Hinkley may be able to release additional information later today.