KENT, Wash. – A police manhunt ended Wednesday with a half-naked, 42-year-old Kent man shot and killed by a police officer after climbing down from a four-story water tank.
It happened around 3 p.m. in the 23800 block of 98th Avenue South in Kent's East Hill Neighborhood.
A spokesperson for the City of Kent says it started around noon as a domestic violence call, in which the man was suspected to have caused serious facial injuries to a woman earlier in the day.
Several neighbors say they saw the man running around the neighborhood and police cruisers going up and down the street. A nearby Montessori school went on lockdown for a couple of hours.
Police caught up with the man after he his car was disabled in a collision. The man ran and climbed the water tower.
He made repeated statements that he wanted to die and threatened to jump from the tower. He also told the negotiators that he was armed and would shoot anyone that tried to approach or stop him. Negotiators also learned that he had made suicidal threats to his assault victim a day earlier.
Kent Police says the man made suicidal and homicidal threats to police negotiators.
After two hours of talking to the man, negotiators got the man to agree to climb down from the water tower. Police say he attempted to draw an apparent weapon from his pocket as he descended the water tower.
Officers shot the man in their defense and that of the adjacent day care facility.
As is customary in these cases, the involved police officers have been placed on administrative leave. The Renton Police Department is conducting this investigation.
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