Arrest made in Feb. Bend burglary, confrontation

More than four months after a southeast Bend homeowner held a garage burglar at gunpoint, then chased him across a field, Bend police said Sunday they have made an arrest in the case.

Around 3 a.m. last Feb. 15, Ken Barrows, 50, got a call from his alarm company to say the silent alarm had gone off in his detached garage at 61462 Brosterhous Rd., said Lt. Brian Kindel.

As Barrows told NewsChannel 21 at the time, he got up and went to the garage, pistol in hand, and found the intruder has broken a garage window out, then opened it, tripping the alarm.

“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 later that day.

“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.

Kindel said Sunday that based on evidence collected at the scene and processed by the Oregon State Police Crime Lab, a suspect was identified – David W. Scott, 46, also of Bend.

Barrows was shown photo lineups to help solve the case, Kindel added.

Scott was arrested around 9:30 p.m. Saturday at his home on SE Parrell Road and taken to the Deschutes County Jail, where he was lodged on second-degree burglary and criminal trespass charges, the lieutenant said.

A jail officer said Scott was released on his own recognizance later Saturday night, pending a court date.

Kindel said one piece of information not released at the time of the burglary was that Scott had packaged several items from the garage into a sack, and had it ready to go when the homeowner confronted him – and he then fled without the intended loot.