Police pursuit, shots are fired, man found dead after SUV catches fire in south Wichita

A man in his 30s was found dead after an all-day ordeal — where a gun was allegedly brandished twice and he also reportedly shot at officers — that ended when the man drove off the road and caught a field and SUV he had been driving on fire, according to Wichita police Capt. Wendell Nicholson.

Officers heard a gunshot after the fire started in the field across from Campus High School, near 55th and Meridian, Nicholson said. The man was found dead in the driver’s seat after firefighters extinguished the flames.

Police first started looking for the man after he allegedly pointed a gun at his neighbors on Friday morning in the 500 block of North Tracy. Officers spotted a vehicle he left the area in but were too far away to try and make a traffic stop.

“About 3 p.m., the same white male goes into a gas station at Maple and Seneca and he points a gun at the store employee and his wife, makes threats,” Nicholson said.

Officers knew it was the same man from the incident Friday morning and went to try and track the man down at his home, Nicholson said. Officers then saw him drive by in an SUV, Nicholson said, and a pursuit started.

“During the pursuit, this individual did fire at the officers,” Nicholson said. “No officers returned fire. No officers’ cars were hit … He got on 55th Street, and for unknown reasons his (SUV) veered off the road.”

Nicholson thinks the heat from the vehicle set the field on fire.

“The field was fully engulfed with fire,” he said, adding the fire extended about 50 yards across.

Nicholson said the man had felony warrants. His wife said he was having a mental health crisis and had made suicidal statements, he said.

“Right now we are just finding out what happened, processing the vehicle,” Nicholson said around 7:35 p.m. “We will be out here on 55th Street for the foreseeable future as we process the area.”