A lengthy standoff at a southwest Denver apartment complex ended shortly after midnight today when the suspect shot and killed himself.
“He took the final resolution,” said Lt. Ron Saunier, spokesman for the Denver Police Department.
The suspect had been barricaded with a hostage since early evening, as an army of police officers and SWAT units stood by.
Police said early today that a SWAT operation had successfully freed the female hostage about 10:15 p.m., but they gave no details about the operation.
Saunier said that police fired gas at the apartment after midnight, and when they rushed the apartment found the suspect dead.
Peachtree Apartments residents had been ordered to stay inside after the suspect in a string of armed carjackings barged into a stranger’s apartment.
The suspect had crashed a stolen car through a nearby fence. As he ran from the crash, he turned to fire at least one shot at pursuing officers, police said.
The same man was the suspect in two other armed carjackings in the south metro area Tuesday as well as a string of home break-ins and two carjackings Sunday, police said.
“We’ve got negotiators on the scene, and we’re communicating with him,” Saunier had said before 9 p.m. The man held one hostage inside the apartment complex at 3550 S. Kendall St., immediately south of West Hampden Avenue.
He took members of a family unknown to him hostage, Saunier said, but let some go later.
A perimeter of heavily armed police units from Denver, Lakewood and other agencies was set up around the complex.
Neighbors who had not made it home from work when the standoff began waited from about two blocks away. Those who lived in or immediately near the apartments were not allowed back in.
The chain of events Tuesday began when a Buick was stolen from a mechanic shop in the afternoon. Littleton police think the same man carjacked a van at gunpoint later in the afternoon. The van was ditched at a shopping center, where he took a Honda sedan at gunpoint about 5:15 p.m.
A TV helicopter filmed footage of a black Honda driving erratically on the frontage road near Morrison Road and South Kipling Parkway just before 6:30 p.m. The driver then went off the road, through two yards and then plowed through a hedge and across a dirt area before finally crashing into a fence.
Police confirmed early today that a woman was in the car along with the suspect and was injured, but had no details about her relationship to the suspect or the chase.
Police also say they are investigating whether the suspect is the man who broke into several houses Sunday in the Coventry gated community.
Coventry is near South Sheridan Boulevard and West Bowles Avenue.
That man allegedly stole a Cadillac Escalade, parked it at another house, and then stole a Jaguar.
