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DA: Officer-Involved Shooting Death Ruled A Suicide

Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office
A still from the dashcam video of the incident shows the deputy running from the car driven by Caleb Douglas.

The death of man killed during a traffic stop in Wichita last last has been ruled a suicide.

The Sedgwick County Sheriff's office says an autopsy report shows 18-year-old Caleb Douglas died of a gunshot wound to the head. The bullet came from a handgun found in his car.

Douglas was pulled over around 1 a.m. on September 1st on North Tyler Road and according to police pointed a gun at the deputy who had pulled him over. The deputy then fired his gun at Douglas, hitting him in the shoulder. Douglas drove off and was found wounded a few blocks away; he later died of his injury.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said during a press briefing Friday that the deputy had a right to self-defense.

“There is no evidence whatsoever that the deputy acted in an unreasonable manner when defending himself, and as such I have determined that he will face no charges for discharging his firearm at the car of Mr. Douglas," Bennett said.

Sheriff Jeff Easter says the department’s Professional Standards Unit will complete an internal investigation into whether the deputy’s actions were within the use-of-force policy.

Nadya Faulx is KMUW's Digital News Editor and Reporter, which means she splits her time between working on-air and working online, managing news on KMUW.org, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. She joined KMUW in 2015 after working for a newspaper in western North Dakota. Before that she was a diversity intern at NPR in Washington, D.C.