Safford police were called to a residence in Safford in response to a report of a man trespassing in a residence. The suspect was described as a Hispanic male wearing a camouflage jacket. The intruder had reportedly left the residence. As officers entered the neighborhood, they found a man walking down the middle of the road, carrying a handgun in his right hand. According to the police report the man did not match the description of the suspect. The man told officers that his neighbor had reported and intruder and he was making sure the suspect was not still around. Officers told the man to go back to his residence and put his gun away.
The reporting party told police that his girlfriend had dropped him off at his house and he went to the bathroom to take a shower when he realized that he had not locked the front door. When he went back to the front room to lock the door, he found a man standing in his home. He reportedly recognized the man as a neighbor. He asked the intruder what he was doing and the man replied that his mother and daughter were dead and there was somebody else living in his house. He said that an older man and a little girl told him to enter the residence.
The reporting party told police that he thought the man was on drugs and was having a mental health episode. The intruder apparently babbled about being followed and that there were people out to get him. The reporting party said that the man left the residence when he called the police.
The investigating officers received a report that the suspect was at the BLM office in Safford. When they arrived, they found the man sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle. The driver of the vehicle confirmed the suspicion that the man was having a mental episode and might be under the influence of drugs. When police asked the suspect why he was in a stranger’s house that night he told them that a little girl and older man told him to go there because his mother was dead and there were other people living in his house.
The man was arrested for criminal trespass and taken to jail.
