Woman detains burglar at gunpoint

When Lisa Hansen woke up Thursday morning, she heard an intruder rummaging through her house.

“I heard him running up and down the stairs,” said Hansen, who lives on the 2800 block of South Century Court just outside the Spokane Valley city limits.

Hansen kept her cool. “He was trying to open my bedroom door,” she said. “I have a lock on it. I waited to listen to see how many footsteps I heard.”

Hearing only one person, she waited until the time seemed right, grabbed her cell phone and reached for the gun she keeps under the bed. She ran out of her bedroom and confronted the teenage burglar, keeping him at gunpoint in her back yard until the police arrived.

Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Drapeau was first on the scene, a few minutes ahead of several other deputies. Puzzled neighbors looked on as he ran to Hansen’s house, gun drawn. One of those neighbors was an off-duty Washington State Patrol detective, who quickly strapped his bulletproof vest over his T-shirt, put his gun on his hip and bolted across the street.

“He saw me run back there by myself and was going to give me a hand,” Drapeau said.

But there were no problems. Three additional deputies arrived within a minute or two and the suspect was quickly arrested.

“She basically had him on his knees in the back yard at gunpoint,” Drapeau said.

Police declined to name the 14-year-old boy who was arrested and charged with residential burglary. He apparently lives in the neighborhood and had been hired by the owner of the house Hansen rents to do yard work, they said.

“He told me, ‘I’m the one who mows your lawn,’ ” Hansen said.

Hansen said the teenager had an explanation as to why he was in her house, but she wasn’t buying it. “He said he saw a man in here and that’s why he came in.”

Hansen said the teen had her roommate’s checkbook in his pocket.

Hansen owns two large dogs, Sheeba and Angel, but thinks they didn’t raise a fuss when the teen came in the house because he was familiar to them.

“My car wasn’t here so maybe he thought that nobody was home,” she said.

Police said the teen probably entered the home through a sliding back door, which may have been unlocked.