Standoff at Graduate Hotel ends, suspect in custody

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - A suspect is in custody after a standoff at the Graduate Hotel on the University of Minnesota East Bank campus that lasted nearly two days. 

Rashad Bowman, 43, had been holed up in a room at the hotel since late Sunday evening when police showed up to serve a warrant for a white-collar crime out of Arizona. The standoff forced police to close roads around the hotel and the University Recreation and Wellness  Center 
Around 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, police say Bowman began lighting small fires in the hotel room.

He lit the curtains on fire and threw things out the window including a microwave, a burning pillow and other items. 

SWAT team members fired round after round of tear gas into his room. Bowman climbed out the window for air, but continued to make threats to police officers. Police had information that he was armed with a handgun. 

“He made multiple threats he was going to kill himself and others and that he wanted officers to come in and get him,” U of M Police Chief Matt Clark said. 

All the while, officers continued to try to negotiate with him. 

“There were a number of issues related to his family life, things that happened in the past related to the crime that he was wanted for, and that was part of the negotiation and discussion,” Clark said. 

Late into the standoff, a SWAT member wearing a gas mask threw a line with a flash bang into the shattered window.   

“Officers were very concerned when he was outside the window that he would fall or become seriously injured and die and so he backed off and that’s why it took quite a while,” Clark said. 

Police eventually rammed the door, but getting in was not so easy.

“When officers rammed the door there were a number of items including mattresses and things from inside the room stacked against the door,” Clark said. “It was very difficult to get through the door they actually broke the door in half and rammed the door of its hinges.” 

Bowman was taken into custody and put on a stretcher. An ambulance took him to the hospital to get checked out, although police say he appeared uninjured. Police did not find a gun on him.

It is unclear why Bowman ended up in Minneapolis, but he has family history in Minnesota. The Fox 9 Investigators discovered his daughter, a former Stillwater High School student, committed suicide in 2014 after appearing in a pornographic movie. She was a 19-year-old freshman attending the University of Wisconsin-River Falls at the time.   

Bowman will face local charges as well as that charge back in Arizona.