METROPOLIS (WSIL) -- A man has been arrested after fleeing from police and barricading himself in an apartment.Â
On January 13, 2022 a Metropolis officer saw a fugitive, 30-year-old Matthew R. Culwell, in the parking lot of an apartment complex.Â
Culwell saw the officer and ran into an apartment. The officer gave chase and knocked on the apartment door. The resident, 37-year-old Mary Evans, denied Culwell was in there, even after the officer said he watched Culwell enter the apartment.Â
As back up officers arrived, a Metropolis Sergeant observed Culwell attempt to escape through a second story window. Culwell went back inside after seeing the officer.Â
As a perimeter was being set up, loud noises could be heard from the upstairs area. The Sheriff then observed Culwell look down at him from a bedroom window in the next apartment.
Officers went into the apartment and found Culwell had broken through a closet wall into the apartment next door with two small children inside. He then broke through another closet wall into a third apartment.Â
Culwell was eventually found hiding inside a couch and arrested on multiple warrants.
He was also charged with residential burglary, criminal damage to state supported property, and obstructing justice.Â
Mary Evans was charged with obstructing justice and concealing/aiding a fugitive.
