Wichita homeowner shoots one of several suspected burglars inside his home, police say

A Wichita homeowner shot one of several suspected burglars he found inside his home Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Emergency crews were called at around 4:07 p.m. to a reported shooting in the 400 block of Garst Street, a Sedgwick County dispatch supervisor said. That’s just south of Maple between Ridge and the Big Ditch in west Wichita. Emergency radio traffic indicated that a patient was in critical condition after suffering a gunshot wound to the chest.

Wichita police Lt. Joe Kennedy said the call started as a burglary and turned into a shooting. A homeowner arrived at his house and found four or five people inside. The homeowner fired one shot, which hit one of the suspected burglars. The people inside then fled the house.

The injured suspect, a 50-year-old woman, was found at the Lost Sock Laundromat at Seneca and McCormick, which is about 4.5 miles away from the house. Paramedics took her to a hospital for treatment of what police called non-life-threatening injuries.

Kennedy said the homeowner is cooperating with the investigation, and detectives have yet to determine whether there was any property loss. The robbery appears to be random with no known prior connection between the homeowner and burglars.

The district attorney’s office will have the final say in determining if the shooting was justified, Kennedy said.

This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 4:37 PM.