It's the third incident in recent weeks in which someone has died or been seriously hurt and Wichita police were involved.
BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle
A Wichita police officer responding to a report of a burglary in progress Thursday shot and killed a resident who threatened another officer with a hunting knife, police said.
The officer shot the man multiple times after the man kept advancing toward a fellow officer who used pepper spray against the man, Police Chief Norman Williams said. The one officer fired because the other officer had to retreat toward a wall in a basement stairwell, Williams said.
It was the third time in the recent weeks that someone has died or been seriously injured in an incident involving Wichita police.
On Thursday, the man received repeated warnings before he was shot, Williams said.
Asked to reflect on the incidents, Williams said: "You're always concerned when you have the number of incidents we've had.
"Why are they not listening to police... when clear commands are given?"
In the latest incident, police would not provide the man's name, and his family could not be reached for comment. He was in his 40s, police said, and lived in Apartment 102 of Kingston Cove Apartments, 2806 S. Osage.
The man, shot in the torso, was pronounced dead at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus at 12:03 p.m., less than an hour after the shooting, police said.
Part of the investigation will focus on whether police had contact with the man before, Williams said.
So far, Williams said, police have determined that:
At 11:07 a.m., the 911 emergency dispatch system received a call from a man in Apartment 102 reporting someone in his home. Four minutes later, police officers approached the apartment.
One officer somehow knew the resident's name and called it out. The resident came to the door with a knife in hand. Police told the man repeatedly to put the knife down, but the man -- still holding the knife --"aggressively advanced" toward an officer, Williams said.
The officer sprayed Mace toward the man and found himself having to back up toward a wall in the basement stairwell.
Another officer "felt that his fellow officer's life was being threatened" and shot the man, who ended up just outside his apartment, Williams said.
Initially, police said two officers had fired weapons, but later it was determined only one officer shot the man, Williams said.
As unfortunate as the man's death was, Williams said, if the officer had not fired, "we may have had an officer cut severely."
Wichita police Detective Danny Farlow, who trains police on how to defend against what he calls "edged weapons," said someone with a knife can rapidly advance on an officer.
Farlow, who would not comment on Thursday's shooting, said generally an officer needs at least 21 feet between himself and an assailant with an edged weapon to be able to safely draw a gun and fire two rounds in time.
Police are trained that it can be appropriate to use a handgun against someone with a knife because a knife can be a deadly weapon, Farlow said.
He also tells officers to "create distance between you and the weapon" if possible.
Meanwhile, as part of the standard response, the officers involved in Thursday's shooting are being put on administrative leave. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation will investigate the shooting and present its findings to the Sedgwick County district attorney's office.
Bob Martin, a retiree who lives near the apartment where the officer shot the man, said he heard three gunshots in quick succession, "loud and clear." Some neighbors said they heard more than three shots.
Martin stepped outside and saw a police officer who seemed upset. "It's got to be pretty horrendous to have to shoot somebody," Martin said.
He saw paramedics giving CPR to a man on a stretcher being taken from the apartment building. Martin recognized the man as a neighbor, though he didn't know the man's name.
"I was really shocked when I saw him," Martin said.