February 1, 2017 - According to Shelby County District Attorney Stephen Shires, a group of law enforcement personnel served an arrest warrant on Eric Bremer, 54 of Shelbyville, following a violation of a protective order on January 18, 2017.
Bremer was previously arrested on December 17, 2016 after allegedly making threats to kill a family member. During the follow up by the District Attorney's office, it came to their attention Bremer was attempting to communicate with his wife publicly.
Shires began saying, "It's kind of ironic, I had actually pulled the case file from the events of December the 17th and was in the process of working that up with what to do with it. And I had actually given it to my investigator, Mr. (Joey) Haley, to go out and to followup with the victim to get some more information. Then that evening we received information that Mr. Bremer was going to attempt to publicly communicate with his wife who was a protective person under the magistrates protective order."
The protective order was signed before Bremer was bonded out of jail to ensure a cooling off period. Shires explained, "That was done in this case thankfully. So, Mr. Bremer was prohibited from doing a number of things - communicating either directly or indirectly with his wife in a threatening or harassing manor. He wasn't supposed to have any firearms. His concealed and carry permit, if he had one, was temporarily suspended."
Once contact was made by officers with the victim, the District Attorney's office was made aware that Bremer had been texting the victim as well. When the District Attorney's office became aware of the contents of the communications, they found some things in the messages to be bizarre and gave cause for concern. "I sent [Investigator Haley] along with the original Sheriff Deputy, Jeff Gogolewski to go out and do a welfare check on the victim. It turns out that he had been communicating with her directly. Again, much of the same sort of bizarre or I would consider to be, if not threatening, then harassing and stalking type information."
Investigator Haley added, "Because of his emotional distress we were not only worried about [the victim's] safety but [Bremer] was another reason why we acted then. Because of the danger that he presented to himself possibly was another reason why [D.A. Shires] would step in for his own protection as well."
A team was tasked by D.A. Shires with the cooperation of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, the Center Police Department, and Constable Precinct 2 Jamie Hagler. The group of law enforcement traveled to Bremer's residence late Sunday evening where they found Bremer inside his house and unwilling to come out.
"I think the officers that were out there, did a spectacular job in how they handled the situation because we didn't escalate the situation, and eventually Joey Haley got on the telephone with the individual and convinced him to come out and turn himself in," said Shires.
D.A. Shires wished to express his appreciation to the law enforcement involved, "I would like to thank both of them, being able to work with them, to get something done in a very short period of time and it all worked out, everything went down just the way it should. So, I can't say how important it is that all these organizations work together to protect people's lives." Shires continued, "We had interdepartmental cooperation between the Sheriff's office, the District Attorney's office, the Center PD, and the Constable, all working together to defuse what could be a very dangerous situation."
After Bremer's arrest without incident, a search warrant was obtained for his residence and as a result a large cache of firearms were located within his home. Shires explained, this violated the magistrates protective order as Bremer was not supposed to have any firearms in his possession, "Like I said, it wasn't just one or two, there was a cache, a large number of firearms and those are in addition to what he had, what was confiscated from the original incident."
During the search warrant of Bremer's residence, a large selection of hand guns including silencers and rifles were discovered and confiscated.
"I would just like to say that I believe that we need, statewide, we need to have plan on how to deal with folks that have mental health issues... I feel like ultimately there is going to be some mental health issues identified in this case and I've already spoken with his defense lawyer on this. And we're going to try to get to the bottom of this," said Shires. "It's not a county deal or a city deal this is a statewide deal. We've got to develop a better plan and a better approach to how to deal with people that have mental health issues."
Shires expressed a concern being often times there is not a whole lot that law enforcement can do until someone takes some sort of action that violates the law. "Luckily in this case, Mr. Bremer, the criminal actions that he allegedly undertook didn't involve anybody actually getting hurt.
On January 19 Bremer was booked into the Shelby County jail for stalking, third degree felony, with a $4,000 bond and for violation of protective order, third degree felony, with no bond set.
Related article: Family Member Threatens to Kill, Suspect Arrested
