Details have emerged about a chaotic wrestling match between an armed burglar and a St. Paul homeowner defending his wife and kids: with bullets flying and a rifle torn from the hands of both defender and foe multiple times.
While the burglar eventually ran off with his gun, police later arrested a man they believe was responsible, and prosecutors have charged him with multiple felonies.
The story of the Sept. 21 incident, outlined in a criminal complaint, started idyllically enough. A woman was washing dishes in her home on the 1600 block of Maywood Street, with her two young children — aged 2 and 5 — asleep in another room.
Then a man walked in the front door and pointed a rifle at her.
“I want the money,” he said, according to the complaint.
The woman screamed, and her husband ran into the kitchen, putting himself between them. There was money in the kitchen drawer, he said.
The burglar looked; didn’t find any.
“Stop stalling or I’m going to shoot you,” he said, firing a round into the floor.
That’s when the husband grabbed the gun, and a chaotic struggle commenced.
Both fell to the ground, grabbing for the gun as it went off again. But the husband got the upper hand, hitting the burglar in the head with the gun’s heavy butt.
The burglar then pleaded to be let go — and grabbed for the rifle again.
The two fell onto the home’s outside steps — and this time the burglar got ahold of the gun. He tried to run.
But the husband tackled him in the street, “and again they wrestled,” the complaint said.
Another shot went off. The burglar got up again and ran. With the gun.
When police arrived, they found the husband waiting with a knee wounded in the tussle.
Three days after the invasion, police received an anonymous tip.
Robert Jovante Barrett, 32, had a recent head injury, the caller said. And he mentioned something about a gun going off.
Police arrested Barrett. Then they talked to his mom.
She said he came home bleeding, saying he’d been robbed at Born’s Bar. Barrett told police he was high on cocaine, and the evening was “a blur.”
“Barrett recalled fighting with a guy over a gun, but he didn’t know how he ended up at their home,” the complaint stated.
Barrett was charged Friday with two counts of burglary, two counts of attempted aggravated robbery, and two counts of assault. He has a prior burglary conviction out of Illinois.