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SOUTH JORDAN -- A nearly five-hour standoff in South Jordan ended Tuesday morning with one man dead.
Police say the standoff started as s domestic dispute at a home near 9400 S. 1100 West around 11:30 Monday night. The man's girlfriend called police from a neighbor's house saying that she was hurt, and that her boyfriend was intoxicated and/or on drugs, and that he may have a gun.
"Her injuries were enough that we needed to get her evaluated," said Lt. Rob Hansen with the South Jordan Police Department.
When South Jordan police arrived at the house to talk to the man about the dispute, they could see him walking around on the second floor of the house. Police tried to make contact with him through the front door and by calling his phone, but they say he wouldn't answer. "He wouldn't respond to the door, he wouldn't respond to the phone calls, "said Lt. Hansen.
The South Jordan tactical unit set up containment around the house and waited for a response from the man for several hours. Then shortly before 4 a.m. Tuesday, those tactical teams deployed several 12-inch gas rounds into the house, hoping to flush him out.
"We actually made entry into the home, cleared the basement of the home, cleared the main level and then moved to the last possible location where he could have been, and that was the master bedroom," said Hansen.
Police fired one last 12-inch gas round into that master bedroom around 4:10 a.m. When they didn't get a response from the man inside, they went into the room and found him deceased on the bed.
"There was not an obvious wound to him, and there's not anything we believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So we believe there were possibly narcotics involved," Hansen said.
South Jordan police say they didn't make entry into the house earlier because they wanted to give the man time to calm down and to surrender peacefully. They say they were concerned he could have been violent, given his extensive criminal history, which they say includes drug abuse.
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