3-Hour Standoff In Lake Wales Ends In Shooting Deaths Of Man, Stepson

LAKE WALES, FL — Two people are dead following a three-hour standoff with law enforcement early Monday morning.

According to Lake Wales Police Chief Chris Velasquez, a woman called 911 at 4:08 am., asking for help removing children from a home on Lindsey Place in the High Point subdivision of Lake Wales due to a domestic disturbance.

When police arrived, a child ran out of the home and told them that 40-year-old Antonio Oliver was inside and the children thought they heard a gun being cocked, Velasquez said.

According to Velasquez, Oliver was in the home with his 19-year-old stepson, a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl. He said the woman who called 911 came back to the scene and wanted officers to get the children out of the house.

Velasquez said officers tried to make contact with the with Oliver using a public address system and asked him to call 911 and speak with police. When Oliver called police, he told them that he wanted to walk out and have police shoot him.

"We told him not to do that," Velasquez said. "We wanted this to end peacefully. At one point, the suspect said not to shoot into the house. The reason he said that is because he was essentially using the children inside as a shield. He didn't want the children to get hurt from what he was telling us."

He said police heard a gunshot around 7 a.m. and SWAT team members ran into the house. They found Oliver dead just inside the front door. His 19-year-old stepson was also found dead in a back bedroom. Velasquez said police believe Oliver shot and killed the stepson but he said they don't know when the stepson was shot.

The chief said the SWAT team did everything it could to get Oliver to leave the home peacefully.

"He was obviously going through some type of crisis personally in his mind and he chose the wrong way to handle this," Velasquez added

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a news conference that there had been prior reports of domestic violence at the home. Judd said deputies found a number of guns inside the home.

"We considered ourselves very, very lucky today. Had he wanted to have a gunfight, he could have created a war," Judd said. "We saw numerous long guns, semi-automatics. We saw handguns with 50-caliber drums attached to them, so he had a lot of firearms.

"We did everything possible to resolve this peacefully and he resolved it with violence, a lot of violence," Judd stated. "It was a horrible situation. He was dead-set on shooting himself."

"Right now, our main concern is the family, the survivors and their mental health and basically just their well-being," said Velasquez. "We want to make sure they’re going to be OK. What they’ve experienced today, nobody should ever experience. This was tragic. The number of people who are affected by this are countless."

The two teenage girls were unharmed.