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Police: 2-year-old, father die after 18-hour standoff

The suspect was holding a 2-year-old boy inside the home

Associated Press

BUFORD, Ga. — A 2-year-old and his father died Wednesday night after the man shot the boy and then himself at the end of an 18-hour standoff in Atlanta’s northeastern suburbs, police said.

Thy Ho, 43, and son Philip Nguyen were each found with a gunshot wound when authorities entered the master bedroom of the Buford home after hearing gunfire about 4:40 p.m. Wednesday, Gwinnett County police Cpl. Michele Pihera said. Pihera said the father shot himself when officers entered the room.

Both were taken the hospital in critical condition, Pihera said, and later died.

Police said investigators are still processing the crime scene and the Gwinnett County medical examiner will determine the official causes of death.

Cpl. Deon Washington said the standoff began about 10 p.m. Tuesday when someone called police to report that a man threatened to shoot everyone at the home and then take his own life.

A female and “several other people” were allowed to leave the home, but the toddler remained inside with the suspect, police said.

A SWAT team sealed off the neighborhood where the “barricaded gunman” was inside the home in a subdivision about 35 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Police announced that residents were being allowed back into the neighborhood Wednesday night.

Wednesday was the first day of a new semester in the county’s schools after the holidays but school buses were not allowed into the neighborhood, which was on lockdown, school system spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

The standoff came one day after police in nearby DeKalb County said a man with a knife held 11 children and his girlfriend inside a motel room for five hours before stabbing himself in the neck Tuesday morning. The man was critically injured No one else was hurt.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press

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