2-Hour Standoff With Farmington Police Ends In Apparent Suicide

FARMINGTON, MN — Police say a Farmington woman killed herself Tuesday after a two-hour standoff with officers. On Oct. 31 at about 3:20 p.m., officers from the Farmington Police Department responded to a welfare check on the 22000 block of Twin Ponds Circle.

Det. Shawn Scovill told Patch a woman living there had been making suicidal threats on the phone to her mother and a friend. Both told police she had a handgun.

Officers were unable to make contact with her by phone or at the door of the home, so they opened a window and called out to her, identifying themselves as police and offering help. The woman yelled at the officers to leave before firing a gun.

Officers then formed a perimeter around the home and requested crisis negotiations and a SWAT team, both of which were dispatched to the scene. After two hours of intermittent communication through text messaging, the woman stopped responding to crisis negotiators.

Two remote-controlled robots were deployed into the residence; one on the main level and the other upstairs via a window. The robot on the upper level located the woman dead on the floor with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Dakota County Sheriff’s Office, Lakeville and Burnsville police assisted in the standoff.

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