One dead after shots fired in wealthy Connecticut neighborhood spark hours-long police standoff
A flurry of gunfire rang out in a usually quiet, upscale Connecticut neighborhood during a tense, hours-long standoff with police that left one person dead Tuesday afternoon, according to cops and reports.
The armed suspect barricaded themself inside a Stamford home on Oaklawn Avenue around noon — unleashing a hail of bullets at responding officers, who returned fire as neighboring agencies swarmed in to help,?according to the Stamford Police Department.
During the tense standoff, police tried to negotiate with the suspect over a loudspeaker and later used an armored vehicle to rip apart the front of the house as gunfire raged on, News12 Connecticut reported.
The suspect was later found dead inside with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
“I would’ve never thought that we would’ve had a standoff in North Stamford, but here we are,” startled neighbor Mark Exantus told the outlet of the terrifying incident.
“To hear tons of shots go off that sounded like ARs, it sounded like a tree was falling. It’s tragic because this is such a quiet neighborhood, there’s lots of kids here. I hope that this doesn’t happen again in any other neighborhood or city. It’s just an unfortunate situation.”
Wild video shared on X captured the chaos, with roughly 14 shots fired in rapid succession as an officer in the background shouted, “Back up, shots fired!”
Moments later, another barrage of about 20 shots followed.
“Get in your car … Get out of here!” the officer can be heard yelling in the footage.
Later in the day, six more shots were fired, a harrowing video from News12 showed.
Neighbors were ordered to shelter in place and avoid the area as gunfire and chaos shook the usually quiet community for nearly seven hours.
Cindy Richardson, who has lived in the area for over 20 years, said she was terrified.
“It’s not every day you hear something like that,” she told the outlet.
“Even though we’re not directly next to it, it’s still really loud. I just hope that everybody is OK. I’ve never seen that much [police] activity before. This street is normally pretty quiet and I’m pretty blown away by all the SWAT cars coming out, it’s pretty wild.”
The property where the individual is barricaded — 263 Oaklawn Ave. — is the subject of foreclosure after being recently repossessed by Wells Fargo, according to court records, News 12 reported.
It remains unclear what sparked the frenzied standoff.
Authorities have not released the suspect’s identity.