Columbus police are retracting an earlier statement that a man killed himself during a shootout with officers on the city's southeast side Thursday morning.
"The previously distributed media release regarding the suspect who was stated to have incurred a "self-inflicted gunshot wound" was sent in haste and in error," an emailed police statement said.
Police were dispatched just after 4 a.m. to the 6000 block of Georges Creek Drive off Gender Road on a call of a man threatening to take his life and kill others inside a home.
Officers found the man in the rear of the residence with a handgun threatening to shoot himself.
Police said the man shot at officers, who then returned fire.
The man, whom police have not yet identified, was pronounced dead just after 4:30 a.m.
Columbus police said in a statement that the exact circumstances of the incident are being reviewed. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating the incident, which is standard procedure.
Brian Steel, president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9, told WOSU that a police report says the man had been drinking, was threatening to shoot himself and his family, and was outside screaming.
Steel said an officer told him that the man fired at least one round at police and an officer returned fire.
The incident follows two weekend incidents where two people died during shootouts with Columbus police.
The first shooting was on Saturday when 50-year-old Corey Roach died after police said he shot and killed 45-year-old Nicole Pleasant.
The second shooting happened Sunday after Ali Hamsa Yusuf, a contract security guard at an Amazon fulfillment center in West Jefferson opened fire, then fled into Columbus, where he was shot by officers on the city's southwest side.
