Aurora SWAT officers, snipers, canines and a hostage negotiator staked out an apartment in the 1400 block of Clinton Street in pursuit of a suspected armed fugitive tonight.
After more than two and half hours of negotiations, 22-year-old Grant Bletcher released a hostage unharmed and then surrendered, said Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson.
A U.S. Marshals fugitive task force was looking for Bletcher in the area about 6 p.m. When Bletcher saw the marshals near East 14th Avenue and Dallas Street, he took off in a white pickup truck driven by a woman.
Though police didn’t chase them, the truck crashed a short distance away. The woman was taken into custody for questioning, and Bletcher ran into a nearby apartment, taking a woman inside hostage, Carlson said.
Court records show Bletcher was wanted on felony warrants for burglary, menacing and escape.
He has been arrested in the past in Denver, Jefferson and Adams counties on drug, burglary, identity theft and vehicular eluding charges. He was sentenced to six years of community corrections in January for a Thornton burglary, court records show.
Bletcher served nearly a year in jail was sentenced to 10 years community correctons for a 2007 conviction for conspiracy to distribute drugs, records show.
