By Cole Waterman
mlive.com
BAY CITY, Mich. — A Bangor Township man has been arraigned on charges that he attacked his septuagenarian neighbor with a butcher knife during a home invasion.
His alleged crimes were thwarted, in part, by a U.S. Secret Service agent who happened to be at the scene.
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Jason Rock Becker, 57, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, appeared before Bay County District Judge Timothy J. Kelly for arraignment on charges of first-degree home invasion, assault with intent to do great bodily harm, and malicious destruction of property. The man is also charged as a fourth-time habitual offender, meaning he faces potential life imprisonment.
According to police reports, Bay County Sheriff’s deputies at about 9:50 a.m. on Oct. 16 responded to an apartment building in the 300 block of North Columbian Street after a 28-year-old Secret Service agent called 911. The agent reported a 73-year-old woman had been attacked and apparently stabbed in a neighboring unit.
Deputies arrived to find the woman sitting outside her apartment, with blood streaming down her face from an open head wound, reports state. A blood trail led inside her apartment, and nearby was a knife with a blade 8 to 11 inches long, deputies wrote.
The woman told deputies she had heard something outside her unit, so she opened her door to look outside and saw Becker holding a knife. Becker had been “slashing” security cameras, the woman told deputies.
“He had this look in his eyes and he lunged at me,” the woman told deputies, according to their reports.
Becker pushed the woman into her apartment’s kitchen, causing her to fall to the ground, she said. He repeatedly tried to stab her in her chest and neck, but she managed to fend him off and get the knife from him, after which Becker left her unit.
Deputies spoke with a 28-year-old Secret Service agent from Maryland who was in town for a wedding and was staying in a neighboring apartment with his wife and mother-in-law. The agent said his wife told him there was a man outside with a knife and that a woman could be heard screaming for help.
The agent retrieved his service weapon, a 9mm handgun, and looked outside, seeing Becker and the injured woman standing nearby, the latter holding a knife. The woman then began knocking on the agent’s door, telling him to call police and that she needed help, reports state.
The agent drew his gun and “told them he was the police,” reports state. On hearing this, Becker returned to his own apartment and closed the door. The woman dropped the blade and the agent began giving aid to her bleeding head wound, he said.
A deputy drove the woman to an area hospital for treatment. She received five to six staples to mend her scalp laceration, reports state.
As Becker would not exit his apartment, deputies summoned the Michigan State Police Emergency Support Team to the scene. They arrived with an armored BearCat vehicle, which they used to punch holes in the walls of Becker’s unit to gain access.
After a nearly four-hour standoff, police arrested Becker. He was taken via ambulance to McLaren Bay Region hospital for a mental health evaluation.
Judge Kelly on Wednesday set Becker’s bond at $750,000 cash-surety or 10% and referred his case to the Office of Assigned Counsel . Becker is to appear for a preliminary examination on Nov. 10.
Becker in 1997 was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison on a Saginaw County bank robbery conviction. The Michigan Department of Corrections discharged him in January 2002. He received probation sentences in 2011 and 2019 on convictions of third-offense operating while intoxicated and aggravated stalking, respectively.
The MDOC discharged Becker from supervision in July 2024.
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