Updated: Stakeout Nabs Suspect in Home Invasion Attack

A 57-year-old man wanted for trying to break into a Lake Forest home and getting into a scuffle with the residents was arrested Friday morning on charges of burglary and assault with a deadly weapon. 

Jerrel Joseph Gower was arrested about 8:30 a.m. along a creek bed near Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, spokesman Jim Amormino of the Orange County Sheriff's Department said. 

Authorities received multiple tips from the public about Gower's whereabouts, and a deputy recalled seeing him near a homeless encampment near the church, Amormino said. 

Deputies set up a stakeout there and arrested Gower without incident, Amormino added. 

Gower's last known address was in Mission Viejo, Amormino said. 

Gower was charged Thursday with first-degree burglary, assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to produce great bodily injury, battery with serious bodily injury, all felonies. He also was charged with assault and battery, both misdemeanors, according to court records. 

Gower also faces sentencing enhancement allegations of inflicting great bodily harm. He was wanted on a $50,000 arrest warrant, Amormino said. 

The stakeout tended to be more of a matter of course. Two deputies on special assignment to burglary patrol in Lake Forest "took it on themselves to go find this gentleman," said Sgt. Jason Keller. "They were assigned to a different job but this was a much better use of their time."

According to Keller, the men reported they were going to go get Gower and they had him in custody less than an hour later.

They crouched in the bushes of the creek bed—encountering a growling German shepherd at one point that was being walked by a passerby—before descending on Gower and cuffing him without incident.

Gower was wearing a trenchcoat and a headband, according to a witness, who indicated that his published weight of 250 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame "was stretching it."

Although Keller described Gower as homeless, he said that Lake Forest does not have a significant homeless population. "As a resident, it's too many, but as a cop, it's not even close," he said. "Very insignificant."

Just past midnight Wednesday, Gower is accused of trying to get into the home in the 20900 block of Parkside, Amormino said. 

A woman who lives there with her husband and two children heard a male voice outside and saw a strobe light in her backyard, Amormino said. 

A man then began banging on the front door and when the woman started opening it, he forced his way in, he said. 

The woman's husband and a daughter rushed to her aid and tried to detain the intruder, but he knocked them down and ran off, Amormino said. A neighbor who heard the commotion tried to chase the man but lost him, he said. 

Outside the house, deputies later found a flashlight on strobe setting and two glow sticks attached to black leather gloves, Amormino said. 

Amormino said the occupants who scuffled with the intruder were "banged up" and reported minor injuries. 

- City News Service and Martin Henderson contributed to this report