A man has been arrested on meth charges after eluding police for several days. KSFY explains why officers said it was so important to find Duane Jerry Bowden.

Drug detectives say there was an active meth lab going on in this building. You see the sticker is still up there after they cleaned out what they say were dangerous chemicals. But neighbors in the area say what they think was going on in here was something much different.

The man investigators were looking for is 47 year-old Duane Jerry Bowden. He was located Friday afternoon in Egan, South Dakota. Mike Milstead, the Minnehaha County Sheriff says officers came to a building in Hartford to talk to him Wednesday night about a vehicle pursuit. He took off.

Sheriff Milstead said, "negotiators were able to talk to Bowden on the phone on the evening of August 13th. And in those negotiations he made threats against law enforcement officers."

But allegations of meth making and threatening officers is far from the type of behavior those who work near Bowden see. We talked to one of Duane Bowden's neighbors. Neili Fullenkamp is having a hard time believing Duane was making meth in this building. "He's got nothing to hide and he's a good guy and nobody around here believes that that's the case. That he's doing meth."

Even before Bowden was taken into custody Sheriff Milstead seemed confident it wouldn't take long too track him down. "The public in the midwest seems very willing to roll up there sleeves and make our communities safer by putting people behind bars that need to be arrested."

Bowden is now behind bars here at the Minnehaha Count Jail. He's expected to be in court on Monday. He also faces several other charges. Court documents say he used a false ID to buy more ephedrine than is allowed by law and he used a false id to get around that limit.

And Friday morning Sheriff Milstead said Bowden is also suspected of being responsible for a case of Grand Theft.