A Rapid City man accused of shooting at construction workers on Monday afternoon southwest of Rapid City isn’t a stranger to local law enforcement.
Journal archives from 2015 show Carl Relf, 53, barricaded himself in a camper when Pennington County Sheriff’s deputies tried to arrest him on multiple warrants for failure to comply, driving under the influence, possession of a stolen vehicle and resisting arrest.
Relf initially agreed to turn himself in before he barricaded himself in the camper. After negotiations failed, law enforcement fired pepper spray through the camper windows. Relf still refused to exit, so Pennington County Sheriff’s deputies, along with officers from the Rapid City Police Department, broke through the barricade and deployed a K-9 unit.
The week prior to the barricading, police used a taser on Relf after they found him in the driver’s seat of a stolen pickup with numerous beer cans and he refused to obey officer commands.
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Relf is currently in custody at the Pennington County Jail for the incident on Monday.
The Pennington County State's Attorney's office charged Relf with five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for pointing and firing a handgun at five construction workers along State Highway 79 south of Rapid City, according to the indictment.
"This is a work in progress, but we don't have any indication at this point that he had anything to do with the construction team," Helene Duhamel, spokesperson for the Pennington County Sheriff's Office, told the Journal on Tuesday.
The law enforcement report regarding the incident is sealed, but the Pennington County Sheriff's Office stated in a press release Tuesday morning that sheriff's deputies responded to a report of a male shooting at construction workers at 1:30 p.m. Monday in the area of Highway 79 and Spring Creek Road south of Rapid City. South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers converged on the area.
No one was injured in the incident.
Duhamel said a construction worker followed Relf after the incident, and law enforcement located him at 1:49 p.m. He was booked into the county jail at 7:02 p.m.
At Relf’s initial appearance in court on Wednesday, a judge set his bond at $100,000 cash only. His preliminary hearing is set for 10:30 a.m. on June 21.
— Contact Shalom Baer Gee at sgee@rapidcityjournal.com —
