Shootout With Ala. Escapees Jolts Tiny ND Town

Residents in this tiny North Dakota town were jarred from their sleep with calls from authorities: Lock your doors.

Thes undated photos released by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows 22-year-old Ashton Kenny...

Thes undated photos released by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows 22-year-old Ashton Kenny Chase Mink, right, and 26-year-old Joshua Loyd Southwick. A nearly 14-hour standoff on a ranch in North Dakota ended Saturday June 6, 2009 ended with the arrest of the two men who escaped from a rural Alabama prison more than 1,200 miles away, a federal law enforcement official said. Southwick and Ashton Mink were apprehended following two shootouts with North Dakota law enforcement, nearly two weeks after their brazen escape from the Perry County Detention Center in Uniontown, Ala.

(Alabama Dept. of Corrections/AP Photo)

Police were trying to capture suspects in a video store robbery who turned out to be four people wanted in an Alabama prison break. The suspects had holed up in a garage and held off authorities for more than 14 hours Saturday before two of them surrendered and two were wounded in a shootout with police.

"We do have some excitement around here every once in a while and this is one of those times," said Lillian Bondell, tending her garden with her husband, Ben, on Sunday in Gladstone. "It's not usually a lively town."

Authorities on Saturday cordoned off the community of about 200 along Interstate 94, about 85 miles west of Bismarck. Some 40 officers had surrounded a ranch where two prison escapees and two women accused of helping them had made their stand with police. They also warned people to lock up in a place that usually doesn't worry about security.

"I locked the doors and turned out the lights and made ourselves as inconspicuous as I could. My husband stayed in bed," Lillian Bondell said.

Joshua Southwick, 26, and Ashton Mink, 22, had escaped nearly two weeks ago from the Perry County Detention Center in Uniontown, Ala., and had eluded officers in at least seven states, authorities said. With them were Mink's sister, Angela, 25, and his wife, Jacquelin, 25.

Authorities said officers were preparing to use tear gas on the detached garage around 2:25 p.m., when Southwick and Angela Mink walked out and were arrested. Ashton and Jacquelin Mink ran out the back of the building, and gunfire was exchanged. Authorities said the two were wounded but their conditions were not released.

Authorities at first thought they were dealing with suspects in a video store robbery in nearby Dickinson until a license plate check of the car they were chasing revealed the suspects were also prison escapees. The four face charges in the video store robbery.