SE Bend Homeowner Holds Burglar at Gunpoint

Ken Barrows had an early-morning wake-up call at his southeast Bend home that he probably won’t forget any time soon, which climaxed with him holding a garage burglar at gunpoint, then trying to chase him down across an open field in the pre-dawn darkness.

Barrows, 50, who lives in the 61400 block of Brosterhous Road, was awakened just after 3 a.m. by his alarm company, which called to let him know the silent alarm in his detached garage had gone off, said police Lt. Brian Kindel.

Barrows said he got up and went to the garage, pistol in hand, to see what happened.

“The guy broke through our garage window — actually opened the garage window and tripped the alarm,” Barrows said later.

“I knew where the burglar came in through, so I grabbed my pistol, cocked it, went outside and shined a flashlight on the windows where I knew he went in,” Barrows said

“There was no window open at the time, so I thought, ‘Well, I’m going in’ — and I came flying through the garage door pretty boldly, because I figured he might be right there.”

Gun in hand, Barrows searched the garage, and that’s when he heard a few scuffles and found a man hunkered down by his wife’s car.

“I held him at gunpoint, and he wasn’t looking at me, and I wanted him to know I had a gun. So I told him to stand up, real slow,” Barrows said. “He stood up real slow, and I said, turn around and look at me. And he kept saying, ‘I have kids, I have kids, I have kids!’ And he kept his hands up,”

In a standoff that was a stare-off, Barrows heard his wife shout that she’d called 911

Eventually, the intruder opened up the garage door and ran, he said. “He goes, ‘I gotta go, I gotta go, I have kids,’ And he reached up and grabbed the release on the garage door, and then he was able to get the garage door up,” Barrows said.

“I chased him across the field, 10 feet behind him the whole way,” Barrows added.

The suspect ended up running full-speed into a barbed-wire fence at chest level, according to the lieutenant, who said Barrows told police the burglar got up and kept running — limping at this point.

Police called to the scene tried to track the man with a police dog but were unable to find him, Kindel said.

Barrows said he didn’t shoot the man for a reason: “I believed him when he talked about his kids, and I believed he’s just a guy down on his luck.”

“He doesn’t realize how close he was to dying,” Barrows said.

Looking back, Barrows said would have handled it all a little differently.

“I don’t think I would have burst into the garage like that,” he said. “I think I would have waited for the police. I should have just called the police first.”

The suspect is described as a white male adult, 40 to 50 years old, with gray curly hair, about 5-foot-8, with a thin build, Kindel said. He was wearing a sleeveless blue vest-style coat, a long-sleeved shirt and light-colored pants.

The burglar also was described as being unshaven. “It is believed the suspect will more than likely have a red linear horizontal mark across his chest, due to colliding with the fence,” Kindel said in a news release.

Anyone with information was asked to contact police at (541) 693-6911. You can also call the Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 1-877-876-TIPS, or use the form on KTVZ.COM’s Crime Stoppers page. You can remain anonymous, and you could be eligible for a cash reward.