Man shoots himself after stealing car with baby inside
DEVILS LAKE, N.D. — A crime spree by a man who fired at a state trooper and then stole a car with a baby inside it is over. The baby was recovered, but the man later took two people hostage before finally shooting himself rather than surrender, police said.
Police Capt. John Barnett told the Devils Lake Journal late Friday that Daniel TwoHearts shot himself as officers began to negotiate with him. He was hospitalized with an apparently non-fatal bullet wound, Barnett said.
No one else was hurt during the entire ordeal, and the public can rest easy now that the suspect is no longer a threat, Barnett told the paper.
“People can relax. It got a little tense for a while in town,” he said.
It began Thursday night when a trooper tried to pull over a pickup truck with a loud exhaust on Interstate 29 at Grand Forks, according to the North Dakota Highway Patrol.
Instead, the driver tried to get away, reaching speeds of about 100 mph, before law enforcement put down tire spikes, stopping the pickup about 40 miles down the highway.
The suspect jumped out and fired three shots at a trooper, who was not injured and did not return fire, said patrol Lt. Troy Hischer.
Two others in the pickup were arrested and methamphetamine was found in the truck, authorities said. Meanwhile, TwoHearts ran into a neighborhood and jumped into an idling car with an infant inside it.
“The mother had started the car to warm it up, brought out the 1-year-old, then went back to retrieve an older child” when the suspect drove off, Hischer said.
Officers spotted that car on a county road about 20 miles away, again deployed road spikes, flattening the tires and recovering the infant unharmed, but TwoHearts got away again.
After dawn Friday, another truck was reported missing, and was later found abandoned at the Wal-Mart in town.
Law enforcement agencies in North and South Dakota and Minnesota were on the lookout, but Devils Lake Police and other agencies caught up with TwoHearts Friday night, barricaded inside an apartment with two hostages, Barnett said.
“We got the female out and the other male, and he was isolated” when they heard a shot fired and then forced their way in, he said.