Utah: Suicidal Man Dies Following Herriman Police Standoff
Late on Sunday night, police in Herriman, Utah, said that an hour-long confrontation with a suicidal man had ended in his death.
Residents around 13000 South and 5100 West were asked to "shelter in place" at around 6 p.m. on Sunday.
At the same time, police dealt with a tense situation involving a veteran reportedly experiencing a mental health crisis.
After the suspect was shot and killed by police, the shelter-in-place warning was lifted shortly before 10 p.m.
In their final statement on Sunday night, police said they were using tactical soldiers to evacuate residents from adjacent homes. The man then began shooting at the officers while they were breaking his apartment's windows. They opened fire in return, killing the man, Fox 13 reported.
The name of the deceased suspect has not been released, although police said he was 38 years old.
What Happened During the Standoff?
The Herriman Police Department in Utah issued a mandatory shelter-in-place order for the Herriman Town Centre area earlier on Sunday evening after shots were fired from within a residence near 13000 S. River Rose Lane (5100 West).
After talking to police for hours, the 38-year-old man allegedly opened fire.
At 9:15 p.m., when SWAT police were attempting to lead neighbors to safety, the man "broke windows out of his residence and opened fire on those tactical units many times over the course of their evacuations," as stated by Herriman Deputy Police Chief Cody Stromberg.
The police had not entered the man's home, the deputy chief said.
He said the police showed incredible restraint but ultimately decided they had to act because the threat had become so grave. The tactical forces opened fire, killing the gunman.
Herriman police said nobody was hurt during the stand-off.
When the man first called the police at 3:45 p.m., he reportedly expressed suicidal thoughts, as recounted by Stromberg.
Stromberg claims the police tried to speak with him and get him out of the situation, per KSL.
While the stand-off was going on, the deputy chief claimed, "unfortunately, those negotiations sort of deteriorated, and he's reached the point where he actually fired rounds from a rifle out of his residence and into the neighborhood surrounding, which obviously elevates our response to that type of an incident."
Stromberg claims that the man had made no threats to anyone but himself during the conversation with police and SWAT but that he had continued to fire "randomly" inside the house.
Herriman Police Said They Did Everything To Save the Man
Police say the suspect was killed in retaliatory fire from tactical units. Officers learned that he served in the Utah National Guard.
After spending several hours with him, his family, his National Guard unit, and the negotiators tried to offer him some options to help him see a better road. As stated by Stromberg, it did not work out, Gephardt Daily noted.
According to him, police continually interacted with him throughout the investigation, offering him several solutions.
"But he just saw it a certain way and had chosen how it was going to end," the police said.
For its part, Stromberg claims that the Unified Police Department is looking into the officer-involved incident.
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This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Bert Hoover
Watch: Herriman residents under shelter-in-place - From ABC4 Utah
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