Hours after suicide, false report draws big response

A Mitchell resident’s medical condition led to a false report of a home invasion and shots fired Thursday afternoon at a home in Mitchell, said Public Safety Chief Lyndon Overweg.

The Mitchell Police Division received a 911 call at 2:30 p.m. from the resident of a home located at 705 W. Second Ave. with a report of subjects entering the home with shots being fired.

It took nearly three hours of investigation and two emergency response teams — one made up of officers with the Mitchell Police Division and another of troopers with the South Dakota Highway Patrol — to clear both levels of the home, but Overweg said it has been determined that no one was inside the home when authorities responded, no shots were fired and no crime was committed.

An unspecified “medical condition” of the resident of the home more than likely contributed to the report, Overweg said. Police are still following up on a possible “person of interest,” he said, but have completed the investigation into this incident.

Overweg declined to identify the person who made the 911 call.

Officers were on the scene seconds after the call came in, Overweg said. Soon, law enforcement set up about a one-block perimeter around the home and evacuated some nearby residents. The Mitchell Police Division, South Dakota Highway Patrol, Davison County Sheriff’s Office, Sanborn County Sheriff’s Office and Division of Criminal Investigation all responded to the incident.

It happened just hours after 26-year-old T.J. Stuckey shot and killed himself after he was involved in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend at their trailer home in eastern Mitchell. An emergency response team was also involved in that incident.

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