WICHITA, Kan. – A Wichita woman at the center of a police standoff after her sons were shot during a family dispute was found dead inside her house when SWAT team officers went in.
Police believe she shot her two sons before apparently taking her own life.
Police surrounded the family's house Wednesday morning on the city's east side after two males — ages 16 and 20 — went to a next-door neighbor's house to say they had been shot.
Houses within a one-block area were evacuated as a safety precaution.
The sons were taken to Wesley Medical Center, but the hospital is not releasing information about their condition. Police said each was shot once — one in the back and the other in the back of the neck.
The sons told police that "they were involved in some type of an altercation with their mother, which resulted in the shooting," Capt. Hassan Ramzah said.
Police made no contact with the woman, identified only as being in her 50s, who was in the family home during a standoff that lasted more than two hours.
SWAT officers eventually fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades into the house as a distraction and stormed in without firing a shot. They found the woman dead of a gunshot wound, Ramzah said.
No one else is believed to have been in the home at the time of the incident, Ramzah said.
Police are not releasing names or further details, and a motive for the shooting is not known.
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