4-hour standoff in Orem ends peacefully

OREM — A four-hour standoff ended peacefully Thursday when five individuals — three of whom police believe brutally beat five people during a home invasion — turned themselves into police at the behest of family members.

The standoff outside an apartment near 1127 W. 675 North in Orem began around 11 a.m. Police believe that some of the occupants brutally beat, terrorized and robbed five people at a north Orem home earlier in the day, said Lt. Doug Edwards of the Orem Police Department.

The apartment occupants refused to come out and hung up when police tried to talk to them by phone, Edwards said. But as the standoff wore on into the afternoon, individuals left the house and surrendered to police. Most did so at the request of family members who spoke to them using police provided blow horns.

"That was key" to the peaceful resolution Edwards said.

Police are questioning four males and an 18-year-old woman in relation to the home invasion. Edwards did not identify the individuals except for 19-year-old Jacob Pele Falo, of Orem, who is currently wanted on a $250,000 warrant for a parole violation stemming from a 2006 aggravated robbery conviction in Salt Lake City.

Around 2 a.m. Thursday, Edwards said, three masked men armed with a handgun and baseball bat entered a home at 1055 E. 800 North where five people, ages 20 to 21, were sleeping. The men kicked down the bedroom doors and beat the people with the bat. A 19-year-old man tried to put up a fight and was bludgeoned repeatedly.

"(He) did have his head cracked open pretty good," Edwards said.

The men forced the home occupants to crawl into the living room where one held the handgun to the back of the victims' heads while demanding drugs and money, Edwards said.

The men gathered up TV's, computers, Xbox equipment, cameras and cell phones and loaded the items into a vehicle before herding the victims into a bathroom, Edwards said. They told the victims they would come back and kill them if they called police.

Police were notified when two of the victims went to Timpanogos Hospital for treatment, Edwards said. The victims were "petrified" because of the threats, but police gathered enough information to put out an alert for three black or Polynesian males and a 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass.