Inset: Chase Michael Oothoudt (Beltrami County Sheriff”s Office). Background: The Beltrami County Adult Detention Center in Bemidji, Minn. (Google Maps).
A Minnesota man may have complicated his own custody dispute after authorities say he made a series of violent threats.
Chase Michael Oothoudt, 29, was released on bond after being arrested and jailed on terroristic threats charges. Investigators allege the threats were aimed at the mother of his child, her fiancé, and law enforcement officers. According to a criminal complaint reviewed by Law&Crime, Oothoudt’s former partner contacted police on June 7 and said he had threatened to come to her home and take their 7-year-old son without permission.
Police said the messages quickly grew more alarming. The woman told investigators that Oothoudt warned he would come to her home and kill both her and her fiancé if they tried to prevent him from taking the child.
The complaint states that the couple’s relationship ended several years ago, though the woman had continued allowing Oothoudt to spend time with their son. She told police those visits became less common after she began noticing what she described as increasingly “erratic” behavior. On June 7, officers said Oothoudt sent her a text reading, “I’m coming to get my son.” In another message, he allegedly said he would “breach the door and take [the boy] by force.”
According to police, the woman repeatedly told Oothoudt to stop contacting her, but the messages allegedly became even more explicit. In one text cited in the complaint, he allegedly wrote, “[Y]ou take my child away from me and I will take your husband from you. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” In another, police said he wrote, “[Y]ou put alot [sic] of faith in those glass ‘security doors’ I sure hope [your fiance] is the man you think he is. NO ONE will stand between me and my son.”
Authorities said Oothoudt later moved the threats to Snapchat, where he allegedly sent the woman a video. In it, police say he can be heard saying, “Soo, I don’t know if this confession or like a suicide letter but ah… yeahhh you take my son from me and I’m gonna shoot your boyfriend in the head and every deputy that wants to come and f— around is gonna find out! I sure hope they have a family they (law enforcement) gonna run like f—ing hell! F— around and find out, b—!”
Police determined that Oothoudt presented a threat to the woman and her family, so they went to Oothoudt’s house. After arresting Oothoudt, police executed a search warrant at his house and found “high powered rifles strategically placed near windows as if Oothoudt was preparing for a gun fight with responding officers.” Police seized a total of 14 weapons including “rifles, shotguns, and pistols.”
Oothoudt was booked into the Beltrami County Jail and posted $50,000 bond on Tuesday; he was released with conditions, including no contact with the woman or her family. He is scheduled to appear in court on June 15.
