Tyler Honeycutt, a former Sacramento Kings and UCLA Bruins basketball player, has died in an apparent suicide after a shootout with police, reports Us Weekly. He was 27 years old.
At about 5 p.m. on Friday, officers responded to a call about a man with a gun at Honeycutt’s Sherman Oaks address. TMZ reported that Honeycutt's mother called the police and said her son was behaving erratically. When officers arrived at the scene, they came in contact with a man in his 20's. "As they were communicating with the suspect he fired out of the residence and the officers returned fire," PIO Josh Rubenstein told Us Weekly.
Rubenstein added that "no officers were injured and it was unknown if the suspect had been struck by the officer's gunfire."
Honeycutt reportedly barricaded himself within the residence. In response, SWAT, Crisis Negotiation Team, and MEU arrived at the scene. About 30 residents were evacuated from the space. At about 2:30 a.m., SWAT found an unresponsive male in the residence. LAFD arrived and pronounced him dead at the scene.
On Twitter, LAPD tweeted, "UPDATE: SWAT entered the residence & located an unresponsive male. LAFD responded & pronounced the male dead at the scene. Investigators from our Force Investigation Division are at the scene conducting a thorough investigation and we will provide more details as they become available."
They later tweeted an update that the victim appeared to have suffered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They wrote, "UPDATE: Regarding last nights Officer-Involved Shooting in Van Nuys Division, it appears as if the suspect was not struck by any officer’s gunfire. The suspect appears to have sustained injuries consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Honeycutt was a college basketball player for the UCLA Bruins from 2009 to 2011. During the second round of the NBA draft in 2011, he was drafted by the Sacramento Kings.
