Wichita man shot himself before WPD officers fired, sheriff says
Body camera footage and an autopsy report show that a 27-year-old Wichita man shot himself before officers fired their weapons during a mental health call that turned deadly Monday afternoon, Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said.
Easter outlined his office’s findings on Wednesday. Wichita police and the sheriff’s office have an arrangement in which one agency will investigate the other after an officer-involved shooting.
Easter said that just before noon Monday, the man went to a friend’s home in the 1400 block of West Haskell because he did not want to be alone.
He spoke with the friend for about an hour and made statements about wanting to die, Easter said, before the friend fell asleep on the couch.
At 1:48 p.m., as the friend slept, surveillance video showed the man taking a handgun from an entertainment center and leaving the living room with it, Easter said.
Around 3 p.m., the man called his mother, told her he was going to kill himself and said goodbye, Easter said. After determining his location via friends and by identifying his truck in the home’s driveway, she contacted the Community Crisis Center and was referred to 911.
Officers with the Wichita Police Department arrived about 3:46 p.m. and met with the mother with plans to conduct a welfare check, Easter said. At 4:11 p.m., they made contact with the man by phone using his mother’s phone.
While still on the call, two officers and a sergeant walked up the driveway and realized the man was not in the house but was sitting in a pickup truck parked outside, Easter said.
“One officer alerts the other officer that the subject has a gun. One second later, the subject raises the firearm and fires one round, which exits through the driver’s window,” Easter said. “1.9 seconds later, the officer that approached retreats, draws his firearm and fires five times into the vehicle.”
The sergeant then broke the driver’s window with a baton, secured the firearm, unlocked the doors and began rendering aid, Easter said. Emergency medical personnel arrived at 4:29 p.m., and the man was pronounced dead at the scene.
The man had previously made suicidal statements, Easter said. He said that the night before, the man was at a bar, where he began telling people he wanted to die. Family told police that he had struggled with mental health and had suicidal ideations for some time. A week before, Easter said, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to take his life with a gun that didn’t fire.
An autopsy conducted Tuesday determined the man shot himself in the right temple and also suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head from one of the five shots fired by the Wichita officer, Easter said. The remaining rounds struck the vehicle.
The final cause and manner of death are still pending, Easter said. His office will provide an update when that is complete. He added that investigators expect to present their findings to the District Attorney’s Office within about a week.
Easter said the man was 27 years old. However, a woman who identified herself as his sister on social media said he was 26, and four days away from turning 27.
This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 5:39 PM.
