Police Search for Fugitive who barricaded himself inside his home and allegely and shot and killed Trooper.
WDIV-TV Detroit
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Police searched Wednesday for a man who barricaded himself inside his rural Newaygo County residence during a deadly police standoff and apparently slipped away undetected before a fire swept through the home.
Two hours after the Tuesday afternoon fire, officials found a backpack filled with food and ammunition about a mile away, state police Inspector Barry Getzen said. The wife of the barricaded man, Scott Allen Woodring, 40, identified the backpack as her husband’s.
“At this point, our investigation of this incident is shifting to a search for a fugitive felon,” Getzen told reporters at a late-morning news conference.
Getzen said police departments in several surrounding states had been notified about Woodring and the Newaygo County Prosecutor’s Office has authorized warrants charging him with open murder and the use of a firearm during a felony.
State police said Woodring was believed to be inside when they fired a percussion device into the house, which went up in flames a short time later. They were uncertain whether the device, intended to stun Woodring, started the fire or if he set it.
State police were called in after the confrontation erupted Sunday night.
Woodring barricaded himself when officers from the Hesperia Police Department and the Newaygo County Sheriff’s Department tried to serve him at his Dayton Township home with a felony arrest warrant. The township is adjacent to Fremont, about 30 miles northeast of Muskegon.
The warrant accuses Woodring of soliciting a minor for sex on July 1 at a gas station, The Grand Rapids Press reported.
Several hours into the standoff, police helped Woodring’s wife escape the home, leaving him alone inside.
After Woodring allegedly fired two shots from the house on Monday afternoon, the State Police Emergency Support Team stormed inside and then withdrew. Trooper Kevin Marshall, 33, an eight-year state police veteran who served on the team, was shot at that time.