Washington state farmer Sam Krautscheid had just baled hay with one of his sons and was heading to an Eric Church concert when his evening took an unexpected turn, and he was forced to use his gun to protect his farm from suspected criminals.
"I’ve got a loud voice. And I just started yelling to get down. ‘Get down, get on the ground and don't come any closer,’" Krautscheid told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. "‘I don't want to shoot, but I will shoot."
On Sept. 9 before 7 p.m., Krautscheid left one of his fields and corralled his three youngest sons into his pickup truck to head to the nearby Gorge Amphitheater to see country singer Eric Church perform and get "some fancy burgers and just hang out and relax." As he and his sons passed a farm store he leases and is in the process of purchasing, he spotted a small car outside the building.
His curiosity piqued, he turned around on the road to investigate.
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"I turned [the truck around], pulled around and parked… and walked over and looked in the car and there's a gas can in the passenger seat, it was a very small car. And in the back seat, had a massage table and a weed eater and some other items that screamed to me you know ‘stolen items,’" Krautscheid said.
At first, he was met with silence and no indication that someone was on the property, sending off alarm bells for him to retrieve his gun from the truck and load it, he explained. He also dialed 911, and alerted police there was a likely burglary in progress.
"I was approaching the corner of the building, I saw an arm. I saw somebody jumped back and I kind of cleared around the end of the building and there was one individual close to me," he recounted, adding that he then saw another man "coming toward me with a billy club."
Krautscheid said he pointed his gun and used his booming voice to yell at the men to get on the ground, with one complying and the other putting up a fight and claiming they were there to rent the building.
"The rear individual got down pretty quickly. The front individual stayed up for quite a bit, was somewhat defiant of the process and made me nervous to the point I felt I was probably a couple of seconds away from having to put one on the ground next to him to try to get them compliant. But, thank God, I didn't have to," he said.
Meanwhile, his three sons, including an eighth and fourth grader, were still in his truck and witnessed the scene.
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"They could see me yelling and screaming, but they had no idea what I was dealing with. I didn't know if there was one person, two people, three people there," the dad of five said. One of his sons had already even texted his mom about the incident and touted to his friends about his dad heroically holding suspects at gunpoint.
Krautscheid explained that Grant County, Washington, is "bigger than the state of Rhode Island," but despite its vastness, deputies were able to make it to his home in six minutes and arrested the two men. They were identified as 45-year-old Glenn Richard of Quincy and 28-year-old Jesus Rangel of Mattawa.
The Grant County Sheriff’s Office was able to prove the two men were on the property for criminal purposes based on shoe prints in the building. Krautscheid lauded the office for the evidence, noting that previous instances of suspected crime have led to no repercussions due to lack of evidence.
"I'm lucky because... I've had handgun and self-defense training classes. But in this situation, I was focused on those two individuals. I had four houses and a yard behind me, and a building behind me, I am lucky nobody was back in there," he added.
Krautscheid noted that the shop targeted by the suspects was "stripped to the studs" because he’s in the middle of purchasing it, and the criminals wound up trying to steal a few jugs of hand sanitizer left over from the pandemic and sets of keys. The items were never taken due to the farmer’s intervention.
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For Krautscheid, he said the incident is "100%" a prime example of why law-abiding Americans should embrace the Second Amendment.
"I told somebody I'm too old to take a beating from a billy club. And my friend joked to me, ‘Is there an age limit to that?’" he said, explaining that if he had not had his firearm, he may have been beaten by the suspect holding the weapon.
"He didn't bring [the billy club] just to carry for looks," Krautscheid quipped.
Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Kyle Foreman told Fox News Digital that Washington state law allows people to "use, attempt, or offer to use force upon or toward the person" whenever "reasonably used by a person to detain someone who enters or remains unlawfully in a building or on real property lawfully in the possession of such person, so long as such detention is reasonable in duration and manner to investigate the reason for the detained person's presence on the premises, and so long as the premises in question did not reasonably appear to be intended to be open to members of the public."
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Foreman added in comment to a local outlet that there are a handful of responsible gun owners in the county who use their Second Amendment rights to protect their property.
"We have many responsible gun owners here in Grant County and if they are outside protecting their property they can certainly hold someone at gunpoint and then call 911 to have us come and investigate and find out what those people are doing there," he told KPQ News.
Krautscheid also said the "irony" behind the two criminals targeting his property was "not lost" on him, noting that he is the administrator behind a Facebook group of local farmers that keep each other updated on local crimes. They post photos of suspects on the page and have met with the sheriff’s office on how to best address rural crime.
"They hit the poster child" of fighting crime as a civilian, Krautscheid told Fox News while laughing.
He noted this is far from his first tango with criminal activity, highlighting that he has had to chase people off his property prior to this incident, and had called 911 an estimated six times this summer alone. He says drug use in the area is to blame, as addicts search for materials to sell for quick cash.
More than 17,500 people in Washington state died from drug overdoses between 2007 and 2021, while the rate nearly doubled during the pandemic, from 827 deaths in 2019 to 1,619 in 2021, according to Washington State Department of Health Data.
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Grant County is nearly 200 miles from major cities such as Seattle or Tacoma, but has seen an increase in fentanyl overdoses, with first responders averaging 7.6 overdose calls every month between August 2022 to August of this year, Source One News reported.
Krautscheid is calling on people to celebrate nuclear families and attend church to help correct crime and drug issues, and even provided Fox News Digital with his "Impact Statement" to the sheriff’s office where he addressed the two suspects and encouraged them to atone for their actions.
"God has bigger plans for you than the path you are on now," he wrote in the statement. "I encourage you to take your lives back. Take the time to reflect and get the help you need while in jail. The resources are available, the choice is yours. Distance yourselves from bad friends and family members."
"Ask God for his mercy on your prior behavior. The devil wants us to be riddled with shame and guilt. The devil wins by telling you that you are only as good as your past and have no hope. God’s mercy is undeniable. God will forgive you for your sins and welcome you with open arms if you change your hearts."
He also addressed the courts, and asked that the two men be given "the maximum allowable sentence."
"I do not believe allowing them to stay and live as they are now will be beneficial for them. I am praying the court and jail can give them resources they need and the time away from their associates to make the break for good in their life. May the Lord have mercy on their souls, and may the court give Glen and Jesus full sentences," he wrote.
The two suspects were hit with second-degree burglary charges, felony charges. Krautscheid and his boys were still able to make it to the concert, albeit a little late, and grabbed pizza after the burger stand closed their grill.
