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SWAT team arrests burglary suspect

by Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer
| May 5, 2018 1:00 AM

COEUR d’ALENE — Thomas W. Gray, a man with a history in Coeur d’Alene’s Fort Grounds neighborhood, is being held in the Kootenai County jail on a $30,000 bond after a judge charged him Friday with burglary, conspiracy, failing to comply with a protection order and for being a persistent violator, which carries up to life in prison.

Gray, whose family for many years owned Gray’s Grocery and the Fort Grounds Tavern, now the Fort Grounds Grill, was arrested this week a few blocks away from the grill as part of a SWAT manhunt.

Gray, 46, was hiding in a Fort Grounds backyard Thursday, not far from his family’s residence, when he was apprehended by police after witnesses watched him burglarize houses in the neighborhood.

He was among three people charged with burglarizing homes in the area.

Suspect Trina R. McNeil, 42, who faces burglary and conspiracy charges, was arrested a day earlier at her residence in Rathdrum. Teresa M. Richardson, 64, was arrested the previous day in Coeur d’Alene also on charges of burglary and conspiracy. Both McNeil and Richardson are in the Kootenai County jail on $30,000 bonds.

As part of the investigation into at least two burglaries in the Fort Grounds, Coeur d’Alene police on Thursday received a tip that Gray was burglarizing another residence in the neighborhood.

Officers were told he had barricaded himself into a home on the 400 block of North Military Drive in the Fort Grounds, so police sent the SWAT unit to remove Gray from the residence, a home used as a vacation rental.

“We received information on a possible suspect and multiple sources indicated he was currently inside of a vacant house on Fort Grounds Drive,” Capt. Dave Hagar said.

Officers who arrived at the scene turned their search over to a SWAT unit.

“Initial officers secured the house and the SWAT team was called after they were unable to make contact with the suspect,” Hagar said.

The owner of the property, who lives in California, allowed police to search the residence, but Gray was not found, police said. He was caught hiding in the neighborhood later in the afternoon, police said.

Owners of rental properties in the neighborhood allowed officers to search their properties as well, before police located the suspect.

At Friday’s hearing in First District Magistrate Court, Gray was also charged with violating a protection order prohibiting him from coming too close to his family’s home.

Gray told the court he hadn’t meant to violate the order, but did it accidentally in the process of committing the felonies, or fleeing from authorities.

“That was inadvertent,” he said.

His preliminary hearing will be set within 14 days.

Gray’s Grocery opened in the Fort Grounds in the early 1940s and was replaced by a tavern and eatery in the 1980s. The tavern remained in the Gray family until around 2006, according to neighbors.