A woman lay dead in a hotel room, and a gunman with gunshot wounds was hospitalized after a tense SWAT standoff early Thursday at a Lewisville motel, capping a pair of dramatic police confrontations across the Dallas-Fort Worth area this week.
The latest episode unfolded around 3 a.m. in the 2100 block of South State Highway 121 Business, where Lewisville officers responded to a welfare check on a suicidal man threatening to harm himself and others at the Budget Suites, police said. When the officers arrived, the man stepped outside and opened fire on them, forcing the responders to take cover as he retreated into his room.
SWAT teams were summoned, and when the armored vehicle rolled up to the scene, the man emerged again and fired at the officers and the vehicle. The police returned fire, and the man ducked back inside, but he eventually surrendered peacefully around 8 a.m. and was rushed to a nearby hospital. It remains unclear whether he was struck by the officers’ bullets or whether his injuries were self-inflicted, according to a Lewisville Police Department spokesperson.
Inside the room, officers discovered a woman who had been shot to death. Investigators had no immediate details on her relationship to the man or whether he was responsible for her death.
“We are not releasing names at this time,” Lewisville Police Public Information Officer Tre Mathis told The Dallas Express regarding the identity of the suspect and victim.
Following the shooting, the officers involved were placed on routine critical incident leave.
The incident came a day after a similar barricade situation in the nearby suburb of Euless ended with a 35-year-old man dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and a woman hospitalized with a bullet injury.
That ordeal began just after 8 a.m. Wednesday at an apartment complex in the 1400 block of Raider Drive, near Euless Boulevard, when Euless officers arrived to find the woman had already been driven to a hospital by an acquaintance, police said in a news release.
The man whom police believe shot the woman barricaded himself inside the unit and refused repeated entreaties from SWAT negotiators with the North East Tarrant County Area SWAT Team to come out.
As the standoff dragged on, Central Junior High, KEYS High School, and the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District’s Disciplinary Alternative Education Program campus went into precautionary lockdown nearby. The measures were lifted later in the day once the threat passed.
“Negotiators made multiple attempts to communicate with the barricaded suspect, who refused to surrender,” Euless police said. When SWAT forced entry into the apartment, they found the man dead.
Neighbors expressed shock at the violence in what they described as a quiet family enclave.
“As soon as I open up the front door the police were standing outside with guns pointing at this unit behind us. They told me to get back in the house. It’s a barricaded hostage situation,” said Erica Conley, who lives close by, per Fox 4 KDFW.
Another resident, Amber Schenk, recalled the couple as friendly.
“They have two little girls and they are out there playing like normal families,” she told Fox 4. “They were always nice every time we see them.”
Euless authorities have not released the man’s name or the woman’s condition, nor elaborated on any ties between them. Both investigations remained active on Thursday.