Another Police Standoff Weeks after Moszer Shooting

The standoff at a Detroit Lakes–area motel comes less than 3 weeks after the death of a Fargo officer under similar circumstances.

Like last time, the Sunday evening call started like any routine one for law enforcement: a man, holed up behind a motel room door, who was allegedly in violation of a restraining order.

But then, as Becker County’s Sheriff Todd Glander explained, things took a turn outside the routine rather quickly.

“He refused to open the door and he made threats, to law enforcement and to others, that if someone came in he would do harm to himself or to anyone who came in,” Glander said. “We evacuated everybody out of the motel and made sure they were safely away from the building, at that point.”

Guests like Zack Leitheiser, who was coming back to the motel after dinner out with his brother, found their quiet end of the weekend suddenly interrupted by an evacuation order by an assortment of law enforcement agencies from around the region, as the Otter Tail County SWAT team was headed in.

“They were worried about bullets flying,” said Leitheiser. “Around here, it’s not so normal. My sister had a major panic attack last night.”

Glander said Fargo’s fatal shooting from less than three weeks ago, and other shootings of law enforcement officers nationwide, are never very far from the minds of law enforcement these days.

His deputies on the scene were able to convince the suspect, Douglas Young, of Dent, to talk with them, and had talked him out from behind the motel room door within about an hour of negotiations.

Young, 49, was taken into custody on suspicion of violating a restraining order and terrorizing. He appeared Monday in Otter Tail County court and is awaiting formal charges in Becker County.

Leitheiser and Glander agreed the quiet end to the weekend was a relief.

“You just hope for a peaceful ending to a bad situation,” Glander said.