Sulphur Springs Police, Special Response Team, and Fire Department responded to a call in the 100 block of Kyle Street Friday night around 11 p.m. where a man had barricaded himself inside a residence wanting to harm himself, according to Captain Jason Ricketson with the Sulphur Springs Police Department. Officers first on the scene attempted to make contact with the male subject by phone but were unable to make contact. That’s when the Special Response Team (SWAT) and fire department were called to the scene.
Other individuals in the residence were not threatened by the man and were able to leave the house without difficulty prior to the attempt to remove the man from the house. A gas canister was fired into the house to attempt to smoke him out. The canister landed on a couch inside the house causing a fire which the Fire Department on the scene quickly extinguished with fire, smoke, and water damage to the structure.
Officers entered the house and found the man, Robert R. Richardson, 38, in a bathroom, dead, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound according to Justice of the Peace B. J. Teer. Teer ordered the body sent to Dallas for autopsy.
