Deputies hold burglary suspect

Spokane County sheriff’s deputies chased, fought and then arrested a 20-year-old transient man Saturday morning, after responding to a report of a suspicious person near Upriver Drive and Van Marter Road.

An initial check of that area came up empty except for a car that had been burglarized. The car’s owner said her purse had been taken, sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said in a press release.

At about 8:30 a.m., deputies responded to a residential burglary alarm in the Northwoods neighborhood when Deputy Mike Beckman spotted a man with a backpack riding a bicycle.

He called the man over and asked him for identification. As deputies Ken Scott and Terry Liljenberg arrived, the man ran and tried to jump back onto his bicycle.

Scott knocked the man over, and the man fought with the deputies before he was arrested, Reagan said.

The man was identified as 20-year-old Roman D. Mirelez. A search of Mirelez’s backpack revealed the stolen purse and a bottle with 20 hydrocodone pills, Reagan said.

Beckman suffered several cuts and scrapes and was treated at the scene by paramedics. Mirelez was booked on the felony charges of second-degree possession of stolen property and possession of a controlled substance, Reagan said.