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Man killed in standoff after shooting at officers over overgrown lawn, Texas cops say

An “ongoing situation” over an Austin resident’s overgrown lawn led to his death during an hours-long SWAT standoff in Texas, police said.

Austin police officers and code enforcement officers showed up at his home at about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday, according to a media briefing shared on Facebook.

They were there, alongside contractors, to serve a search warrant for a “nuisance abatement” regarding the long grass in the front and back yards. When nobody answered, they left a copy of the warrant and the contractors began to work on the home’s lawn, police said.

About an hour later, at 10:21 a.m., an officer said someone inside the house fired shots at them, according to Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon. The officers backed away, got staff to safety and called for SWAT as the “barricaded suspect” did not respond to officers.

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SWAT arrived about 20 minutes later, with mental health officers and a crisis negotiator, to try and de-escalate the situation, Chacon said. They tried to talk with the man inside for several hours, but all techniques were unsuccessful.

At 3:19 p.m., Chacon said the man shot at officers who were behind the home. Because of the “immediate threat,” police used a robot to enter the front of the residence. Through the robot, police learned a fire had started inside and was quickly spreading. Someone inside the home continued firing, Chacon said, and officers maintained a safe distance as they weren’t able to tell where the shooter was at and if he was firing toward the front or the back.

For about 20 more minutes, officers tried to get the man to leave the home as it became engulfed in flames. The fire department was brought in to put out the fire.

Then, at 3:39 p.m., the home’s garage door began to open and the man stepped out of the home while holding weapons, police said. A SWAT officer, who has worked with the department for 8 years, fired at the man, who then “went down with a gunshot wound.”

Officers separated the man from his weapons, pulled him from the house that was now engulfed from the fire and tried to save him, Chacon said. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4:01 p.m.

Austin Fire Department put out the house fire and nobody else is believed to have been inside the home, Chacon said.

As per department protocol, the officer who fired the fatal shot has been placed on administrative duty as criminal and administrative investigations are completed. The identity of the man who died has not been released.

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