2-Year-Old, Suspect Dead in Hostage Standoff: Reports

BUFORD, GA -- The 2-year-old held hostage since Tuesday night has died, according to media reports.

Thy Ho shot himself and his son, 2-year-old Phillip Nguyen, after a 19-hour standoff, according to WSBTV.

The standoff began Tuesday night between police and the man holding the boy hostage, and had stretched late into Wednesday afternoon.

According to Gwinnett County Police, at approximately 4:40pm, officers heard a gunshot from inside the master bedroom and quickly entered the room.

They found that the suspect had shot himself and that the boy had also suffered a gunshot wound.

The boy was transported by helicopter to Children’s Healthcare in Atlanta. The suspect was transported to the Gwinnett Medical Center.

The standoff, on Beyers Landing Drive in Buford, was touched off Tuesday night when police believe a domestic argument went bad.

Gwinnett County Police said Wednesday morning that the son of a woman who lives at the Beyers Landing address called 911 at about 10 p.m., saying his mother’s boyfriend was holding the family at gunpoint.

The suspect was threatening to kill everyone, then commit suicide, police say.

When SWAT teams arrived around 10:30 p.m., the gunman let the woman and several others leave the residence, but kept the 2-year-old boy with him.

“My dogs started going crazy like they’ve never done before,” Roy Groshek, a neighbor, told WXIA-TV. “I came downstairs to see what was going on and there was a light shining in the window, and it was the police.”

By Wednesday afternoon, a helicopter from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston had joined the array of law-enforcement vehicles at the scene. Police said it was there as a precaution and that there had been no report of any injuries despite the standoff’s violent potential.

At about 12:20 p.m., Gwinnett police issued a request that media helicopters be kept away from the scene “for safety and tactical reasons.”

Police have obtained arrest warrants for the suspect, whom they have not publicly named, charging him with aggravated assault.

The standoff marked the second day in a row the area has seen charges of domestic violence spiral into a hostage situation.

On Tuesday, a DeKalb County SWAT team rescued 12 hostages -- one of them a 3-month-old baby -- after a man held them at knifepoint for more than five hours in an unincorporated Decatur hotel room.

The suspect, 36-year-old Kurrie Thomas, reportedly stabbed himself in the neck before being taken into custody by police.