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Show Four Arrested Following . Convenience Store Incident PANGUITCH - "I've worked in a convenience store myself and seen some scary people peo-ple but this guy said Panguitch resident Rick Miner about individual arrested last week after some harassing behavior in a local gas and goodies stop. Menacing Behavior Last Wednesday, Apr. 30, around 7 p.m., local resident.. Dayna Brown was working as a clerk at the newly purchased Eagle Stop Texaco on Main street in Panguitch. A male, appearing to be in his early 30's, in disarray, shabbily dressed and acting strangely, entered the store. He seemed to systematically systemati-cally begin harassing or making open comments to various shoppers shop-pers in the store at the time. One of the first shoppers approached was Clinton Miner, 12-year-old son of Rick and Tina Miner of Panguitch. Overhearing the stranger's remarks to his son, Rick Miner said he turned, looked the man right in the face and told him, "This is my son you're addressing." address-ing." The man backed off a little, lit-tle, but Miner said he had a "bad (See ARREST on page 3A) I Four Arrested At Panguitch Store From Front Page feeling" about this him and that, after looking in his eyes, could tell he was "waeked out." In the meantime, clerk Dayna Brown became more and more uneasy about the stranger's escalating menacing behavior. '. She stated he "kept reaching into his jacket like he was hiding something there." When Miner approached the counter to pay for his purchase, he looked at Brown, "I could see the fear in her eyes like "Help me, help me.'" He was going to have her call 911 but decided to leave and make a call for help on a cell phone. Once out of earshot, he called Garfield County dispatch ' describing the man as in his late 20 's or early 30 's, fairly stout with bones worked into his ear lobes, openly aggressive and definitely chemically impaired. In The Store The man continued his odd behavior, systematically confronting con-fronting each patron in the store. Brown said she felt he was trying try-ing to clear the store of patrons, possibly in an effort to rob com mit robbery. His motives, she said, were never really clear. At one point he had words with one male shopper and physically took a swing at the him. Each shopper quickly purchased what they came for, then left, leaving Brown with a sinking feeling of loneliness and abandonment. She said she still can't understand under-stand why more customers didn't did-n't sense the urgency of the situation, situ-ation, like Miner had, and was ultimately grateful for Miner's intervention. She felt panic start to rise within her as the last customer cus-tomer exited the store and began to pray under her breath to God. She said that suddenly complete com-plete peace came over her and she then pointedly told the man that, whatever he was thinking, he had picked the wrong place and needed to get out. The man left, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes momentarily momen-tarily and when she opened them there on the premises were several Garfield County officers starting to get a handle on the situation. Officers Arrive Miner said that when he called dispatch, he was told, "This may be the individual we are looking for." Apparently, shortly before coming into Eagle Stop, the same man had stopped at Ward Mangum's Mini-Mart and had openly acted out when the clerk there refused to sell him four cigarettes out of a pack of cigarettes. Disgruntled, Disgrun-tled, he left, and the clerk quickly quick-ly called dispatch to report the incident. Sgt. Danny Perkins headed straight for that convenience store on East Center Street only to find the person he was looking look-ing for had gotten into a vehicle headed north. He got a brief description and headed quickly north through Panguitch on the highway. About three miles north of Panguitch something told him to turn around and go check the other convenience stores first. Just as he approached the corner coming back into Panguitch the call (See ARREST on page 7A) Arrest At Panguitch Store From Front Page came over the radio for assistance assis-tance at Eagle Stop. Martin Nay, owner of the Subway shop at that location and former Panguitch City Chief of Police drove up just about the same time as Perkins. The owner of the convenience store, Ron Rosser drove up also just at the right time and Miner was there ready to help if needed. Miner said the "wacked out guy" got temporarily distracted by the uniqueness of Martin's old classic red truck. Perkins quickly assessed the situation, noting three persons in a 1988 Toyota station wagon that had pulled up to pick up the suspect. There was an open container in that vehicle, plenty of probable cause to arrest them. Telling to Nay to grab the suspect's arm to restrain him, Perkins grabbed his other arm and quickly handcuffed him. Backup officer Clint Pollock and Sheriff Than Cooper arrested arrest-ed the other couple in the back seat of the car. And Perkins arrested the female driver as well. The Suspects Taken into custody were the male suspect from the store, Ronald Allen Castillo, 32, of Sacramento, Calif, and the driver, driv-er, female Valen Christine Shafer, 49 of Rochester, N.Y. The two in the rear seat were a couple of hitchhikers picked up in Tucson, Ariz., and were released after investigation. Follow-up investigation, was determined that Castillo and Shafer were in possession of a stolen vehicle. Each was ultimately ulti-mately charged with possession of a stolen vehicle, Castillo also with public intox, and Allen with driving under the influence and open container. Over a period of several weeks the couple had apparently befriended a college student back in West Virginia. On Apr. 21, they had asked the student to borrow his car to check for some money coming to them at Western Union. They took off in his car and never returned. Perkins contacted West Virginia but they were not interested inter-ested in extraditing the couple. After one night in jail, both were arraigned on Thurs., May 1 in justice court and released on their own recognizance after signing notices to appear in court. Perkins reported that several knives, scissors and other varied paraphernalia were taken off the suspects. He was grateful to have the backup of citizens and law enforcement in a situation that could have potentially gone very differently. He's My Hero Dayna Brown also feels fortunate for-tunate and says, "He's my hero Rick Miner." She said only Miner was sensitive and caring enough to do something about a potentially disastrous situation. And she praised local law enforcement: "They were great; they were right there and diffused dif-fused the problem without incident." |