Suspect Shot Dead By Police After Standoff At Sunland Home

SUNLAND-TUJUNGA (CBSLA.com/AP) — A man who Los Angeles police say broke into a house was shot and killed by officers Monday in Sunland after a standoff that lasted more than five hours and included several exchanges of gunfire.

Police responded to a "hot prowler" call from the house in the 11300 block of Alethea Drive just before 9 a.m., said Officer Aareon Jefferson of the LAPD's Media Relations Section.

A homeowner was able to evacuate through a back window. Neighbor Rosie Johnson told CBS2 that she spoke to the resident, who described what happened.

"She (the homeowner) told me that she had woken up hearing something, like muffled sound," Johnson said. "And she went out and she saw this man in her house. And he mumbled something at her about cookies... and of course it scared the life out of her because she just woke up. And she went back into her bedroom, but the door did not have a lock. So she then escaped out of one of the windows."

When police arrived, the suspect - a man in his 20s or 30s - refused to come out, Jefferson said.

The homeowner told police that she had several firearms inside the home, prompting the officers to call for a SWAT team, Detective Meghan Aguilar, an LAPD spokeswoman, said.

Police tried for several hours to negotiate with the man and convince him to surrender but he refused to come out of the home, she said.

After barricading himself in the home for about four hours, the man came outside with a gun and fired at police, causing at least one officer to return fire, Aguilar said. For the next two hours, the man periodically came in and out of the home and opened fire at police officers outside.

"When he would exit, sometimes he would fire and there were some officer-involved shootings," Aguilar said.

Police deployed tactical smoke several times during the standoff and around 3 p.m. the man was seen emerging from the home amid a cloud of white smoke.

Video from Sky9 showed an officer on the side of the home shooting the suspect, causing him to roll down a hill behind the house. The man could be seen lying in brush at the bottom of the hill as a police dog approached his motionless body.

Aguilar, citing an ongoing investigation, declined to comment when asked if the man was armed when he was shot outside of the home.

The man, whose name was not immediately released, was pronounced dead at the scene, she said.

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)