Intruder allegedly crashes into garage, forcibly enters apartment, gets arrested
<p>Brandon Miles is moved on a stretcher to an ambulance on Tuesday after leading a police chase that ended in him being Tasered by police at the Lone Tree Apartments in Rathdrum.</p>
<p>Fire officials from Northern Lakes Fire Protection work the scene of a home that was crashed into during a police chase on Tuesday on Wright Street in Rathdrum.</p>
<p>Jaime Morris and her 17-year-old son, Caleb, relate their experiences of having their apartment broken into on Tuesday in Rathdrum. Caleb was home when Brandon Miles allegedly kicked the front door open before jumping out Caleb's second-story window, where police were waiting for him.</p>
<p>Brandon Miles</p>
RATHDRUM — Caleb Morriss had a rude awakening on Tuesday afternoon.
The 17-year-old woke up to an intruder who was over him and had forced his way into the second-story unit Morriss was sleeping in at the Lone Tree Apartments in Rathdrum.
"His foot was right in front of my face," said Morriss, who was not injured. "The second I looked at him I knew he was screwed up. He mumbled something to himself when he saw me wake up. When I saw him getting out the window, I punched him in the face, pushed him and helped him out the window. When he hit the ground the cops swarmed him.
"I didn't know who he was and I didn't want him here."
Brandon Anthony Miles, a 26-year-old transient from Kootenai County, who has been wanted for failure to appear on a burglary charge since last year, was arrested on two counts of malicious injury to property, battery, eluding, resisting and two counts of burglary.
The incident at the apartments at the corner of Highway 41 and Crenshaw was the second residence Miles allegedly abruptly disturbed in Rathdrum.
Police had put a bulletin out on Miles as a potential suicide-by-cop threat.
Rathdrum Police Officer Josh Baker spotted Miles driving a white Toyota Celica without license plates, a hood or windshield in the area of Highway 41 and Stevens around 3 p.m.
"He was aching for somebody to stop him," Rathdrum Police Officer D.J. Duke said.
After a short pursuit, Miles allegedly drove through a garage door at a home at the southwest corner of Wright and Alabama, according to police.
Miles then ran into the home, frightening two female occupants.
The crash in the garage sparked a fire with some cardboard under the Celica.
"Our battalion chief (Kevin Croffoot) was coming back from a vehicle fire and training and he put out the fire with a fire extinguisher," Northern Lakes Fire District spokesman Jim Lyon said. The fire was minimal and didn't enter the home."
The two females, who declined to comment, were checked for smoke inhalation and not injured.
Miles then ran out the front door with Baker and Duke in pursuit on foot.
Miles ran upstairs at the Lone Tree Apartments — two blocks from the car crash — and forced his way into an apartment after being told to surrender, according to police.
After he entered where Morriss had been sleeping, Miles jumped out the window into bushes near where the officers were waiting.
Miles allegedly refused to cooperate with the officers so a stun gun was applied to arrest him.
"He wouldn't give up his hands," Duke said.
Morriss, a student at Mountain View Alternative High School in Rathdrum, was home resting after he was feeling ill.
His mother, Jami, was at work when she received the call about the incident.
"When I got the phone call about what happened, I said, 'I'm outta here,'" Jami said.
The Morrisses and the occupants at the other home Miles allegedly entered told police they don't know Miles.
"I think he was just finding a place to escape," Jami said.
Miles was transported to Kootenai Health to be checked for any injuries associated with leaping from the apartment and being hit with a stun gun.
Miles has been booked into the local jail nine times from 2008 to 2015, including for charges of grand theft, burglary, probation violation, disturbing the peace and obstructing.