A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Law enforcement officers from Cloquet, Fond du Lac and Carlton County and firefighters waited outside the Carlton Lofts apartment building in Cloquet while negotiators tried for hoursMonday afternoon and evening to convince a man in an upper floor apartment to come out and surrender.
Billy Joe Martineau of Cloquet was ultimately arrested after the incident Monday. He was charged with first-degree damage to property and misdemeanor domestic assault.
A police call Monday for a disturbance at a local apartment building ended well, but only after police and firefighters converged on the building for hours.
Nearly a dozen police cars and four fire department vehicles lined Carlton Avenue outside the Carlton Lofts apartment complex Monday afternoon, as police negotiators tried to convince a man in an upper floor apartment to come out and surrender.
Billy Joe Martineau, 26, of Cloquet, was ultimately arrested. He was charged with first-degree damage to property and misdemeanor domestic assault in Sixth District Carlton County Court on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Bail was set at $1,000 cash or $10,000 bond.
Cloquet Police Chief Derek Randall said Martineau had been accused of stealing his ex-girlfriend's van earlier in the day but returned it when confronted by police, then later in the day he was at the center of a disturbance at an apartment.
After they were called to the scene, police could hear Martineau destroying items inside the apartment, but he refused to come out. Randall said the suspect was told he was under arrest but continued to refuse to surrender, telling officers he wouldn't go peacefully. Officers began evacuating the entire building and clearing the parking lot vehicles in case Martineau tried to jump out the second-story window or break the windows. Later they thought they smelled something burning.
"Because of that, we contacted the (fire district) to be on standby should we need to breach the door to apprehend the suspect and extinguish any fires," Randall told the Pine Knot News.
After several hours without any resolution, Randall said they contacted the St. Louis County Emergency Response Team to assist.
"Before the ERT arrived on scene, one of our negotiators was able to speak with the suspect and convinced him to come out of the apartment, unarmed, and submit to arrest," Randall said.
Martineau was taken into custody without further incident, and assessed at the hospital before being taken to the Carlton County Jail. An omnibus hearing in the case is set for Nov. 23.
Randall said the police department has had 75 calls for service to the Carlton Lofts apartment buildings in the last 12 months. The apartments are in the old Cloquet Middle School building.
