Citrus Heights man found dead after standoff
by Brad Smith
CITRUS HEIGHTS — A 55-year-old man shot and killed himself inside his Citrus Heights home yesterday afternoon. The Citrus Heights Police Department’s SWAT team discovered the man’s body after entering the residence sometime around 10 p.m.
The Sacramento County’s Coroner Office is withholding the victim’s name pending notification of relatives.
According to Lt. Jeff MacKanin, Citrus Heights Police Department, police officers accompanied code enforcement inspectors as they went to the victim’s residence, located along the 7400 block of Grand Oaks Avenue. “Code enforcement was investigation the possibility that (the victim) might have been stealing power,” MacKanin said.
The officers and code enforcement inspectors found no one at home. “They left and returned a short while later,” the lieutenant reported.
When they did, MacKanin said, some of the victim’s family members were standing outside the house. “They were concerned about his well-being,” he said. “They told the officers that he had been distraught about a number of issues, including the death of a family member. They asked the officers to make a welfare check.”
A family member unlocked the door and officers entered the residence, finding that the victim had shut himself inside a bedroom. MacKanin said that an officer knocked on the door “and that’s when (the officers) heard a gunshot.”
Once they had heard the gunshot, officers quickly evacuated family members from the house and established a perimeter. “SWAT was contacted and a number of neighboring homes were also evacuated.”
News crews and onlookers crowded both ends of the 7400 block as a crisis negotiation team attempted to contact the man. Both uniformed officers and SWAT team members had positioned themselves behind patrol cars as the night went on.
MacKanin said that after several attempts to contact the vicitm proved futile, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad had been contacted. “The squad’s robot was deployed at the scene, checking the residence.”
Determining that the man was still in the bedroom, MacKanin said that SWAT went inside the house. “They found the man’s body inside the bedroom, dead from a self-inflected gunshot wound.”
MacKanin stated that his department’s evidence response team and detectives had been assisted by by the coroner’s office with processing of the scene.
