Man charged following threats, standoff

A 43-year-old Fond du Lac Reservation man who threatened to kill family members was arrested Sunday, July 31, following a three-hour standoff with law enforcement.

James Warren Bosto was subsequently charged in District Court in Duluth on Monday, Aug. 1. He faces a felony charge of threats of violence, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Authorities responded to the home, on Mallard Drive in rural Cloquet, at around 6:30 p.m. Sunday, after residents reported Bosto being impaired and threatening to kill them.

The three family members were able to safely evacuate the house as Bosto barricaded himself inside the home with a loaded rifle, said a criminal complaint filed in District Court.

The Fond du Lac Police Department and St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene, which concluded after law enforcement obtained a search warrant to remove Bosto from the residence using the county’s tactical response team.

Bosto was apprehended without incident as he attempted to crawl out a window of the house, the criminal complaint said.

Bosto had been using methamphetamines and was awake for three of four days preceding the incident, the complaint said. After sleeping, a family member told authorities Bosto woke to consume “a big bottle” of hard liquor and began to threaten members of the household.

Bosto was being held at St. Louis County Jail with bail set at $15,000. He’d previously been convicted of domestic assault charges in 2006.

“The state has serious concerns about the safety of the defendant's family when he is under the influence of alcohol and controlled substances as he was alleged to have been in this matter,” the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office wrote in petitioning for a larger bail amount.

Supervised release during his court proceedings would require Bosto to surrender his firearms, and complete substance use assessment while in custody at an available treatment facility.