DA: No charges for Wichita officer in fatal shooting of man who shot another officer

A Wichita officer involved in a fatal shooting with a man who had shot an officer three times will not be charged, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Tuesday.

“This was a fairly straightforward assessment,” Bennett said during a Zoom news conference. “The facts were not in controversy.”

The officer has been with the department for five years. He fired one shot from a rifle that fatally hit 28-year-old Tyler Hodge in the torso.

Bennett also released a 23-page document providing more details into the shootout Hodge had with police on June 19, 2021, at his home in the 500 block of W. Carlyle.

Hodge’s family could not be reached for comment.

Hodge fired approximately a dozen shots at officers. Officers, including Kyle Mellard who was shot in both legs and the face, fired 11 shots at Hodge after finding him in a shed with a rifle while responding to a domestic violence-related call.

Police were called around 10:15 p.m. after Hodge’s girlfriend confronted him and accused him of hitting her daughter the night before. She told him it was over and he needed to leave, but Hodge told her she would have to call the police, she told a detective.

He later “put his hand on her throat and arm and shoved her” into her bedroom, the document says. They had separate rooms. Back in his room, she heard Hodge unloading and loading a gun and making a suicidal statement that it was her fault.

In the past, she said, Hodge had made statements about “suicide by cop,” the document says.

Hodge was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who long struggled with mental health issues.

Police arrived after the daughter had texted her great-grandmother, who then came to the home. Police found a rifle in the home and an empty gun case, the document says.

The girlfriend told police that Hodge owned a handgun and an AR-style rifle. She heard the back door open and shut but didn’t know if Hodge had left the property.

Two officers saw a garage door that led to the backyard ajar. In the backyard, they found a shed partially open. One officer shined his light inside and found Hodge sitting with a rifle between his legs, with the butt against the ground.

The officer told a detective he told Hodge to “drop the gun” but Hodge said no. Hodge then stood up and fired two rounds, the officer said, as he and the other officer retreated to the front of the home and took cover.

He dropped his flashlight as they retreated.

At 10:36 p.m., the second officer radioed in that shots had been fired. She originally said he had a shotgun but later corrected that it was a rifle.

Police also told the girlfriend, her daughter and her grandmother to leave the home. The girlfriend said she then checked her phone and noticed a text from Hodge, who was using her daughter’s phone.

“I tried to build my life back up I got a job I got a license I tried,” the text said. “I needed somebody to help me up. Not do everything they could to invalidate me. I should have tried harder. Please tell my family I wasn’t all bad. I love you.”

Area officers were responding to the report of officers in trouble.

Mellard and two other officers, including the one who killed Hodge, were at the south patrol substation, less than two miles away, when the call went out.

They got in one vehicle and arrived within minutes.

Mellard went up to the first officer, who had taken cover, and asked where the shooter was. He didn’t know. Mellard continued down the street, then that officer reported hearing five or six shots and seeing Mellard fall to the ground.

Mellard, body camera footage showed, said “shots fired” as Hodge shot at him. Mellard fired six shots from his handgun before being hit in both legs. As he fell, another shot broke his jaw in three places, took out his teeth and went into his spine.

Mellard became unresponsive.

Officers radioed in that an officer was down at 10:41 p.m.

A sergeant drove down Carlyle Street from the east and found Mellard in the street. He got out, as Hodge continued to fire, and pulled Mellard by his vest behind a vehicle, the document says.

Another officer helped move Mellard as a third officer fired four shots with a rifle for cover fire, the document says.

At 10:46, Mellard was lifted into the back of a police SUV. The sergeant and a Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office deputy drove Mellard to Ascension Via Christi St. Francis. En route, the deputy put a tourniquet on both of Mellard’s legs.

Meanwhile, an officer who had seen Mellard go down was armed with a rifle and looking for the suspect. He saw a flashlight being thrown, presumably the flashlight the officer had dropped earlier, and shined his light in the area.

He spotted Hodge pointing a rifle at him and the other officers, the document says.

At 10:59 p.m., the officer fired one shot, hitting Hodge and causing him to fall. Officers moved in and started CPR. Hodge was pronounced dead by EMS at 11:12 p.m.

Police later found a 9 mm handgun in the shed where Hodge had been. It’s estimated Hodge fired a dozen shots, all from the rifle, the document says.

Bennett said the officer who fatally shot Hodge was acting in self defense and was “clearly immune from prosecution under Kansas law.”