FORT PIERCE, Fla. (CBS12) — A man was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after deputies responded to a reported domestic violence incident Saturday morning in Fort Pierce’s Lakewood Park neighborhood.
Deputies responded around 10:17 a.m. to a home in the 7600 block of Winter Garden Boulevard, where they encountered a man in the front yard. The man went back inside after seeing law enforcement, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.
A SWAT situation is unfolding as deputies respond to a reported domestic battery in Fort Pierce’s Lakewood Park neighborhood. (WPEC)
Deputies say they later contacted a man and woman at the front door. A deputy saw what appeared to be a firearm in the man’s possession and ordered him to drop the weapon, but he shut the door and retreated inside, prompting a barricaded-subject situation with other occupants still in the home.
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During the incident, the man reportedly came outside several times and indicated he would surrender after making a phone call, but repeatedly went back inside, deputies said.
During his final retreat into the home, deputies say they heard what appeared to be a gunshot.
Concerned for an adult woman and children who remained inside, deputies entered the home without alerting the occupants and evacuated them through a side window, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies later found the man dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The sheriff’s office said there is no ongoing threat to the community.
Detectives with the agency’s Criminal Investigations Division, crime scene technicians and investigators from the Medical Examiner’s Office remained at the scene to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.
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