LAKE WALES -- A domestic violence and apparent hostage situation ends with two men dead at a home in Lake Wales early Monday morning.
Police chief Chris Velazquez says officers answered a 911 call just after four Monday morning. A woman asked for help getting two children out of a house on Lindsay Place in the Highland Point subdivision. Velazquez says when officers arrived, a child ran out and said the suspect was inside and they thought they heard a gun being cocked. Police negotiators made contact with 40-year-old Antonio Oliver, who said he wanted to walk outside and get shot by police. Officers told him they wanted this to end peacefully. Oliver asked them not to shoot into the house because of the children.
The SWAT team burst into the house after hearing a gunshot. They found Oliver dead by the door, and his 19-year-old stepson in a bedroom. Officers believe Oliver shot the stepson and then himself, but they are still working to determine how much time separated the two shootings.
Velazquez says right now, officers are focused on helping the survivors, which include the woman and the children, who are two girls, 14 and 16 years old.
Polk Sheriff Grady Judd, whose deputies assisted on the case, says Oliver had "numerous" firearms in the house. "Had he wanted to have a gunfight, he could have created a war." Judd says deputies saw long guns, semiautomatics, and handguns with .50-caliber drums. Judd says Oliver might have shot at the woman who called 911 a month ago, but that incident was not reported to law enforcement.
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