Stearns County deputy shot with arrow; suspect in custody

A central Minnesota man suspected of shooting a Stearns County Sheriff's deputy with an arrow was arrested Thursday after a standoff in a Sauk Centre, Minn home.

Authorities said the Osakis-Alexandria area man was driving a stolen black pickup when he pulled into a John Deere lot about 10 a.m. and ran into a building. He drove the truck through multiple backyards, smashed into parked vehicles and eventually crashed through a garage on 10th Street, then ran into a home through an unlocked door, according to the Stearns County Sheriff's Office.

The neighborhood was evacuated and Sauk Centre schools went on lockdown.

Officers from Stearns County, Sauk Centre, Melrose, Osakis and the Minnesota State Patrol set up a perimeter and entered the home in search of the suspect. No one else was home at the time.

The man appeared at the top of the stairs on the second floor and shot a target arrow from a compound bow, hitting Deputy Paul Orvis in the forearm, authorities said. Officers in the home fired their weapons and the man was struck in the left shoulder and buttocks.

The standoff continued for about two hours as a SWAT team negotiated with the man. At one point, he asked for Wintergreen chewing tobacco, said Stearns County Sheriff Don Gudmundson.

"One of the officers had some and threw it up there," he explained. Eventually, the man appeared at the top of the stairs and officers tased him, Gudmundson said. He was taken to St. Cloud Hospital, where he is under guard.

Orvis, a 17-year-veteran with the Stearns County Sheriff's Office, is listed in good condition at St. Cloud Hospital, where doctors removed the arrow's shaft and treated him for a possible broken arm.

The St. Cloud Police Department will investigate the assault on the sheriff's deputy and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation will oversee the officer-involved shooting.

Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788