Authorities Storm Apartment; Man Had Shot Himself
By Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press
An eight-hour standoff between the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office tactical team and a 40-year-old Wixom man with a shotgun ended at about 4 a.m. Monday when police stormed the apartment and found the gunman dead.
Police said the man shot himself in the head.
His last words to authorities, according to Sheriff Michael Bouchard, were something to the effect of: “I’m putting on my gas mask and it will all be over soon.”
Police said the standoff began at 7:35 p.m. Sunday, shortly after a caller reported that there had been a shooting at an apartment in the Bristol Square apartment complex on Beck Road. One person had been shot, police said.
The gunman, whose name was withheld by police pending family notification, then barricaded himself in the apartment.
Police said it was unclear why the gunman shot the other man, whom police also declined to identify.
Bouchard said the two men were friends.
After he was shot in the arm, the injured man ran from the apartment and was taken to Huron Valley Hospital.
The blast grazed him, police said, and the man’s injuries were not life-threatening.
Meanwhile, Wixom police called the county sheriff’s tactical team. Snipers took position while other officers closed apartment complex entrances and evacuated residents. Three negotiators attempted to contact the gunman on a cell phone.
Alfred Dinverno, who has lived in Bristol Square for two years, said he drove to the complex at about midnight but was turned away at the entrance by police. “I saw all kinds of armed SWAT there,” he said Monday.
For about six hours, Bouchard said, three negotiators tried to convince the gunman to surrender. Bouchard said the talks followed the same pattern: the negotiators would call, and the gunman would talk, then hang up and fire the gun. It was unclear what he was shooting at, police said. Officers said they lost track of how many shots were fired.
The man told negotiators he had a gas mask that he could use to protect himself if the tactical team attempted to storm the apartment with tear gas.
However, as daylight approached, Bouchard said, the tactical team decided the standoff had to end. Police entered the apartment and found the floor riddled with holes from the shotgun blasts and that the man had shot himself in the head.