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Plan of Attack
Robert was back at his house in seconds. He planned to get his rifle and ammunition from the garage. But as he approached, he saw the intruder enter the garage from the laundry room. Then he saw his friend and neighbor, Dale Hatcher, running down the street, carrying a pistol. Robert knew that Dale was an expert marksman and owned several guns. He told Dale he couldn’t get to his rifle in the garage because the intruder was there.Dale ran back to his own house, got a shotgun and tossed it to Robert. Now the two friends made a plan. They would trap the man inside the garage so he couldn’t get back into the house, where Robert’s kids might still be. They’d hold him until police arrived. While Robert covered the garage doors, Dale circled around front, intending to cut the intruder off at the laundry room door.
It had been a slow night at the Pocatello Police headquarters. With the sergeant on vacation, Cpl. Trent Whitney, 35, an 11-year veteran of the force, was in charge. Whitney walked over to the dispatch center to tell them if they needed him, he’d be out back cooking his dinner. He’d fired up the grill to cook some salmon.
“We have a 911 coming in,” said one of the two dispatchers. The dispatcher’s tone told Whitney it was serious. A second call raised the flag from serious to urgent. Both calls were about events occurring on Sonoma Street in the Satterfield district. Details were sketchy: One dispatcher reported there were two men out on the street with firearms. And people were yelling. Whitney and his team of four officers grabbed their gear, raced to their squad cars and headed for Satterfield.
Because John and Linda Gregan’s bedroom faced away from the street, Ana had no idea what was going on in her house. She hadn’t heard sirens, but at least she hadn’t heard gunshots. John again called 911, to find out what was keeping the police.
Meanwhile, Robert commanded the garage doors with the shotgun. Dale, pistol in hand, entered his friend’s house. Because the floor plan was the same as his own, he found his way easily in the dark, moving quickly across the foyer, past the living room and then left into the laundry room. He stood at the door, knowing there were three steps down to the garage level. In one motion, he turned the doorknob and switched on the lights. The gunman was crouching on the floor behind a bench, pointing the gun in Dale’s direction.
“Don’t move,” said the intruder, “or I’ll take your legs off.”
Dale knew he should take cover, but something told him to hold his ground. He raised his .45-caliber pistol. “Drop the shotgun or I will shoot you,” he said. Neither man blinked. The gunman laid his weapon at his side. He stood and put his hands up, then started backing away to the far side of the garage, toward the door. But Robert stood ready, shotgun in hand, just outside, covering all possible exits.
Dale moved in and picked up the intruder’s weapon. Then the man did something unexpected. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a four-inch black tactical knife and held the blade to his wrist.
“Go ahead and kill me,” he said. And he refused to drop the knife.
Robert spotted the police cars streaming into the neighborhood and quickly filled in Corporal Whitney on who was in the garage. Then he led the corporal and the other fully armed officers to the scene.
Through the windows in the retractable garage doors they could see the intruder and Dale Hatcher, holding a handgun on him. Whitney yelled to alert Dale that he was a police officer and he was coming in.
Then Robert punched the code into the keypad of the garage door opener—and the doors began to slowly rise.
“Don’t move,” Whitney yelled. He stepped forward with his assault rifle while Robert stood guard behind him. “Put the knife down.”
Instead, the man lifted the knife to his neck and shoved the point up to his jugular. Whitney then told Dale to exit through the garage door. Dale carefully backed out.
With the cops in command, Robert went looking for Ana. In the confusion, he’d heard, erroneously as it turned out, that his older children were already out of the house.
While Robert was looking for Ana, Dale and another neighbor, Mike Farrer, went into the Mandziara house through the front door. Inside, they found the two older children in their bedrooms. The four-year-old boy was still asleep. Dale checked the other bedroom and found seven-year-old Bayleigh. She was awake. She’d heard her daddy fighting but had stayed put. Dale assured her that everyone was now safe, and he and Mike carried the children to Dale’s house.
In the Gregans’ home, John was still on the phone with 911. Then, at last, he relayed the words to Ana from the 911 operator that she’d prayed she would hear.
It was over. Robert was all right.
Linda took the baby, and Ana raced out the door. Police-car lights were flashing, and the neighborhood was lit up like a mad carnival. For a split second, she didn’t know where to look.
Then there he was, in the Gregans’ front yard, running toward her. She threw herself into her husband’s arms, and they just stood there, holding each other and sobbing.
“The kids are okay,” he said. “It’s over. Everyone’s okay.”
It was an hour before police were able to end the standoff with Dean Clay Miller. He continued to hold the knife to his jugular, alternating between threatening to kill himself and asking the cops to shoot him. Finally, when one officer created a distraction, another officer got close enough to hit Miller with a Taser.
Miller was charged with burglary, kidnapping, assault with intent to commit robbery and methamphetamine possession. There is also a deadly weapon enhancement to the charges.
As it happened, Pocatello had just hired a new chief of police, who was on his way to Idaho from Orlando when the invasion occurred. His first question was, “How many are dead?”
None, he was told.
“Well, that’s a surprise,” he said, reflecting on the scope of the intrusion and standoff. “Where I come from, usually two or three people die.”
Captain Steve Findley credits Robert and Ana Mandziara’s quick thinking and courage for their family’s survival.
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