Two in custody after standoff in Council Bluffs neighborhood

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (WOWT) - Federal law-enforcement officials and Council Bluffs Police were working early Thursday to get a couple of fugitives and a stolen gun off the streets.

Police had to shut down a portion of Avenue A for about an hour and a half Thursday morning to get the fugitives in custody. Federal law enforcement had been keeping an eye on a residence in that area, looking for a fugitive.

“The fugitive force of the U.S. Marshalls were the original people doing the surveillance,” Council Bluffs Police Lt. Chad Geer told 6 News.

While federal officials were watching the house, a second man known to police walked into the house with a long gun.

“They’re both felons. They’re both in possession of weapons. They have long criminal histories — they’re dangerous people,” Geer said.

Keshawn Houtz-Mayfield, 20, was taken into custody on a warrant. Court records show he entered a no-contest plea in connection with a bank robbery in Omaha back in 2020. His sentence included four years of probation.

The identity of the second person is not being released at this time, but the investigation is ongoing.

Ashlee Hyland lives across the street.

“Yeah, yeah. I got four kids... They’re guns everywhere,” she said about what she saw when she looked out the window Thursday morning.

“I woke up — there were cops out there. They’ve all been standing like this the whole time, and two guys were taken out maybe a little bit younger than me; I’m 30, but they probably were in their 20s,” Hyland said. “That’s all I’ve seen so far. I’ve seen the mom — there were two girls — they let them walk down the street, and that was about 8, 7:30 in the morning.”

Hollie Davis Bray drove around the scene this morning. She was concerned about what was going on there because her son was right down the street in school.

“First, they were just out having their guns drawn, behind trucks, and now they’re going in the building,” she said. “I’ve been circling for about an hour because my son goes to the school up here.”

Council Bluffs Police say they had the situation under control the people inside the house came out without incident — no one in the neighborhood was ever in any danger.

“We did evacuate a few houses along the road,” police said. “We did block the road off just for the safety of the people in the area.”

CBPD said most of the time out here was spent waiting for a search warrant.

“And I think at this point, slowing it down, doing our job right, getting the search warrants that we need to preserve the evidence.”

Law enforcement searched the home and found one rifle and one stolen handgun

Police said multiple agencies working together kept everyone safe and removed two guns from the hands of people who were prohibited from possessing firearms.

“I think working with the other agency and using all the resources, from adult probation — a lot of the information came from adult probation — the U.S. Marshals having the ability to conduct surveillance on the house to make sure our targets are inside the place.”

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