Standoff ends with suspect's death


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RIVERTON — A 10-hour standoff in Riverton has ended with the suspect taking his own life.

Evacuated residents have been allowed to return home and 13400 South in Riverton is now open.

The incident near 13400 South and 4000 West began around 6:30 p.m. Sunday when a 31-year-old man and his wife got into an argument. The suspect's wife called police saying her husband had fired one shot at her as she was leaving the house.

Police arrived and made contact with the suspect. He made threats about harming law enforcement and himself. Knowing the suspect had at least one gun in the house and a military background, police evacuated nearby homes and asked everyone within a two-block radius to stay in their basements.

Neighbor Brennan Potter said, "I came home from fishing and there's just a bunch of cop cars and a bunch of people out in the streets just watching and seeing what's going on."

Another neighbor, Colton Timothy, said, "We've seen probably over 50 cops heading over there."

SWAT officers spent the next few hours negotiating with the suspect, but then suddenly he cut off communication.

Lt. Justin Hoyal with the Unified Police Department said, "We had tried several manners, through the phone, the bull horn, and he never responded to any of those calls. During that time we felt we should introduce the robot into the home and search for him because we knew he did have a firearm and did make threats towards law enforcement."

The robot found the suspect had taken his own life and the standoff was declared over around 5 a.m.

Police will remain on scene this morning, investigating the man's death. They need to determine how many weapons he had in the house, and if any other shots were fired besides the one toward his wife.

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