By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
TAYLOR — A suicidal man fatally shot himself after nearly an hour-long standoff with Taylor police Wednesday.
Taylor Police Cmdr. Mary Sclabasi said the man’s daughter called shortly before 5 p.m. to report that her father, a 55-year-old Jackson man, had a pistol and threatened suicide.
Officers responded to an alley behind a strip mall in the 7800 block of Telegraph, where the armed man said he recently was given a terminal cancer diagnosis.
“The man was pretty despondent,” Sclabasi said. “They talked to him for about an hour, but he ended up taking his own life.”
Sclabasi said that responding officers “did an outstanding job” in trying to calm the distraught man.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way,” Sclabasi said.
At 5:45 p.m., officers witnessed the man’s fatal gunshot; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
As of press time, the man’s name was being withheld pending family notification.
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected])