Man, 38, rushed to hospital after 5-hour standoff with SWAT in north Wichita on Sunday

A 38-year-old man was shot and rushed to the hospital in critical condition Sunday afternoon after a five-hour standoff in north Wichita with officers of the SWAT team, Wichita police chief Lem Moore said in news briefing.

The incident began around 9 a.m. in a home in the neighborhood at W. 45th St. N and N. Arkansas, police said. A family member of the man called 911 reporting that shots had been fired during a domestic violence incident.

Four to six people in the home were able to get out safely. Officers arriving to the scene learned that the man barricaded himself inside a shed in the back yard, according to Moore.

Officers were able to make contact with the man through a phone call. Authorities talked with the man but he eventually cut all communication with police. Around 10 a.m., negotiators arrived to the home and attempted to talk with the man. He was uncooperative, Moore says.

Officers from the SWAT team were called out around noon. Authorities learned that the man had a criminal history of discharging firearms. “There’s a history of violence with this individual of shots being fired. Officers were aware of that,” Moore said.

SWAT officers tossed a phone into the shed, but the man refused to talk with officers. The man then “began to fire shots randomly throughout the outside of the shed. Four to five shots were fired, one hitting a police vehicle,” Moore says.

No one was struck by the gunfire, Moore added.

The man then stepped out of the shed “to shoot once again,” Moore said. The man was shot once by an officer. Sedgwick County EMS moved in to begin treating the man.

“He was transported critical, but still alive,” according to Moore.

Wichita police spokesperson Trevor Macy said the man was involved in an earlier domestic violence call around 6 a.m. with family members in another area of town. The man had already left when officers arrived to the initial call, Macy added.