Mother, son defend home from brazen intruder

Originally ran here as:
"Mother, son defend home from brazen intruder"
July 11, 2001, KATU-TV, Channel 2, ABC Affiliate in Portland

PORTLAND (AP) - A man who walked uninvited into a home and later tried to break in through a window led police on a wild freeway chase after being stabbed by the homeowner's son.

Pamela Halstead, 45, and her 20-year-old son, Jeremiah were watching television at their home about 11 a.m. Monday when the screen door opened and a man walked inside and asked for "Juan."

"We're sort of flabbergasted," Halstead said Tuesday.

Halstead and her son told the man they didn't know anybody named Juan and he must have the wrong house. The man walked out and Halstead heard him pick up her cat and then open the gate to the back yard.

"I told my son to lock the door and deadbolt it," Halstead said.

She called 911 and then remembered a window in a back room was open. She and her son ran to the room and found the man trying to get inside.

"He was trying to come in, hollering he wanted Juan," Halstead said.

She got a shotgun and her son got a knife to defend themselves but the man grabbed the shotgun barrel. Her son stabbed the man, and he left.

"It sounded like he was praying," Halstead said. "It was in Spanish."

As the man got in his van, the police drove up and began a chase that led them to Interstate 205, where the man began driving the van recklessly in and out of oncoming traffic, according to Officer John Wrigley, a Portland police spokesman.

A squad car clipped the van from behind, spinning it around to face its pursuers. But the driver charged police, hitting a squad car and causing a minor arm injury to an officer.

The man got out of the van, bleeding from the stabbing, and tried to run but didn't get far, Wrigley said.

Oscar Ignacio Gutierrez, 30, was charged with burglary, attempted assault, trespassing, attempting to elude police, driving under the influence of intoxicants and felony hit-and-run.

He was in fair condition and under police guard at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center.

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