Des Moines landlord battles suspected burglar with a golf club



DES MOINES, Wash. – A Des Moines man working in Afghanistan gets an alert on his computer that there’s movement on his home security camera. He quickly calls his wife and finds out she's shopping and they realize there is a burglar inside their home.

A couple calls later and their landlord is heading over to the property.

“My wife said, ‘hey you should go next door there’s someone breaking into the house. They’re in there now.’ So stupidly, I grabbed my golf club and waited for the man,” said landlord Glen Urquhart.

This all happened about 11:30 a.m. in the 25800 block of Marine View Drive Friday.

Home surveillance video shows the burglar loading up a laptop and packing up bags full of stolen goods.



“He came out the door and I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t going to let him leave. Then he tried to leave and we fought for about a minute and a half in the front lawn,” said Urquhart.

You can even hear the men struggling through the home video.

“I had trouble restraining him with my golf club in my hand which was strange so I threw it off so I could hold him down better, but then he somehow got my golf club and hit me with it.  Then my wife ran over and she picked up the crowbar,” said Urquhart.

Urquhart says the situation escalated so quickly, when his wife came out, he wanted all the fighting to end.

“You should probably leave before someone gets hurt. So he ran to his car and so I chased him over there and I smashed the rear window with my golf club so the cops could identify the car more easily,” Urquhart.

Des Moines Police quickly spotted the Honda Accord with a broken rear window.  Police say the chase went all through town with speeds reaching 100 miles per hour.

“The K9 did an extensive track throughout the whole neighborhood. Backyards, dead ends, Cul de Sacs, brushes anywhere they could possibly look and they just weren’t able to find the guy,” said Des Moines Police Sgt. Doug Jenkins.

Neighbors called in the suspicious man.  He’s a white male in his 30s or 40s about six feet tall with a medium build.

“He’s got long dark hair in a ponytail with what was told to us is a Fu Manchu mustache that was gray. But someone else described it as a Hulk Hogan style mustache,” said Sgt. Jenkins.

While Urquhart says the man didn’t appear to be on drugs, he was pleading to leave.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I got a family please won’t you let me go? Let me go. And I said no,” said Urquhart.

Urquhart has some scratches on his hands.  He had his hair ripped out of his head.  On second thought he agrees with the police warning:

“Just wait for us to get there and tell us what you saw,” said Sgt. Jenkins.

Sgt. Jenkins says people make better witnesses than trying to engage with a suspect especially not knowing if they’re armed or their state of mind.

Sgt. Jenkins says having a home security system is a great deterrent for burglars and at least can provide evidence to police if a crime is committed.

Call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-22-TIPS if you have any information.  You could get up to a thousand dollar reward.