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MOORHEAD - Moorhead police on Tuesday, Nov. 1, released the identities of two of the five people taken into custody Monday evening, Oct. 31, after a Halloween standoff in a neighborhood south of Concordia College.
Five people who were holed up in a home in the 1900 block of Sixth Street South surrendered just after 6:15 p.m., according to police spokesman Lt. Tory Jacobson.
While negotiators talked with those in the house, heavily armed SWAT teams swarmed the area.
Jacobson said the incident began around 2 p.m., when members of the Metro Street Crimes Unit tried to serve a Minnesota Department of Corrections warrant on Hector O. Flores, 36.
Flores fled into the home and told police he had access to a firearm and wasn't afraid to use it, Jacobson said.
That's when authorities backed away and set up a perimeter.
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Jacobson said area residents were instructed to shelter in place, typically in a basement, to avoid potential gunfire.
Just after 4:30 p.m., a Red River Valley SWAT team arrived at the scene. Moorhead police also had help from Fargo police, the Clay County Sheriff's Office, the State Patrol and Grand Forks police, Jacobson said.
Throughout the standoff, camouflaged officers wielding rifles could be seen deploying in armored cars. At least one sharpshooter could be seen hunkered by a fence nearby. As the evening began, the Salvation Army brought a food truck to serve officers in case of a protracted standoff.
Negotiators ultimately convinced the five adults in the home to come out and all five were taken into custody.
Jacobson said Flores was arrested on the Department of Corrections warrant, which involved a charge of attempted homicide, and his brother, Hector L. Flores, 38, was arrested on a Department of Corrections warrant involving a drug charge.
Three people who were taken into custody and later released without being charged were identified by Jacobson as Abraham Deleon, Angela L. Canales and Rosa C. Balderas.
Jacobson said authorities found a rifle inside the home, which was confiscated along with a facsimile handgun.
Around 8 p.m., after police confirmed no one else was in the home in the 1900 block, Sgt. Thad Stafford said police issued the all clear by cellphone messages and, on Sixth Street and Seventh Street, they went door to door to deliver the message.
Court records show Hector O. Flores was convicted in 2004 in Clay County District Court of attempted second-degree murder for shooting a man during a confrontation at a house party in October 2003. He was given a 15-year sentence.
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In Minnesota, inmates typically serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars, unless they get into trouble while in prison or while on supervised release.
