MOORHEAD — A standoff in south Moorhead on Sunday, May 5, began after police responded to a report of an assault and the suspect refused to cooperate with authorities, police say.
About 9:26 a.m., police were sent to an apartment in the 1600 block of 20th Street South after a caller reported that a man, later identified as 52-year-old Terrance Lee York, was physically assaulting a woman, according to a Moorhead Police Department Facebook post.
York also allegedly made threats of further violence using a knife and a hammer, police said.
As officers arrived, the victim was escaping through an apartment window. Officers saw York inside the apartment but he refused to come out, police said.
After some time, officers tried to enter the apartment and saw York standing in the kitchen with what appeared to be a handgun, police said. York fled into the back of the apartment.
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The Red River Valley SWAT Team was dispatched to the scene, and the apartment building was evacuated.
Officers began negotiations with York in a standoff that lasted about two hours, and he was taken into custody before the SWAT team arrived, police said. Officers found a fake handgun inside the apartment.
York was being held at Clay County Jail on suspicion of domestic assault, second-degree assault and false imprisonment. Charges had not yet been filed against him in Clay County District Court as of Monday afternoon, May 6.
Sunday's incident was the second time in less than a week that Moorhead police were involved in a standoff.
On April 30, Blake Carl Fitzgerald, 35, was involved in a nine-hour standoff with Moorhead officers at a house in a neighborhood near Concordia College, police said. Fitzgerald is facing several felony charges, including second-degree assault and domestic assault.
