Man fired three rounds before Wichita police fired back, killing him, sheriff says

A 35-year-old Wichita man who was fatally shot by police Wednesday night in north Wichita pulled the handgun from his head and fired three rounds at police before eight officers fired back 45 times, Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said Friday.

Luis Alfonso Rivera died at the scene.

Just moments before the shooting, a Wichita officer used a 40 mm less-lethal projectile and hit Rivera in the back after he refused to drop his weapon, Easter said.

“While the officer was announcing the deployment of the less than lethal round, the suspect stated he was going to make it lethal,” Easter said during a news conference. “The suspect turned toward the officers, leveling his gun toward the officers and fired multiple rounds.”

Eight officers fired either a department-issued handgun or rifle. All of them were put on administrative leave, as required under police policy. Two officers have been with the department five years; two for four years; two for three years; one for six years and one for seven months, police said.

To promote transparency, the sheriff’s office and Wichita Police Department recently started investigating critical incidents involving each other’s officers, including shootings.

The sheriff’s office released pictures and a short video that showed Rivera, with a gun to his head and back toward officers, being hit by the less-lethal round and then turning toward police while raising his gun.

“The reason we are not showing the rest of that video is we don’t think that is appropriate for anybody to see and then also we have to maintain the sanctity of the case for if there is any criminal charges to this,” Easter said.

The video did not have any audio. Easter said that was how he received the clip but didn’t know if audio was available.

The incident started at 7:44 p.m. after a 911 call about “someone in the house pointing a gun at another person in the 2300 block of North Fairview,” Easter said.

Rivera knew the three people who were at the home and lived there. Inside the home, he pointed the gun to his own head and at one male who lived there, Easter said.

Easter said they are still investigating what sparked the incident.

“The crux of this is he was in a mental health crisis,” Easter said.

Officers arrived at 7:54 p.m. and found Rivera walking south on Fairview with a handgun to his head and “yelling at the officers.” Officers told the suspect to put the gun down, but he wouldn’t listen.

Some officers followed on foot and others in vehicles. A WPD crisis negotiator used a vehicle speaker and ordered Rivera to drop the gun, he said.

“At one point he had charged at the officers still holding the gun to his head,” Easter said.

He said Rivera headed west on 21st while “refusing to comply with the multiple requests to drop the gun.” He walked in the middle of the road as police tried to reroute traffic.

He then walked to the parking lot of a vacant building at 21st and Arkansas before an officer used the less lethal round. The shots were fired around 8:07 p.m. Rivera was hit multiple times.

Police started first aid.

Medical officials with the Wichita Fire Department arrived at 8:14 p.m. and found Rivera unresponsive. EMS arrived three minutes later. Rivera was pronounced dead at 8:21 p.m.

“Mr. Rivera had sent text messages stating to people that he was going to commit suicide by cop,” Easter said.

Rivera has convictions in 2009, 2016 and 2019 for aggravated robbery, aggravated battery, fleeing and eluding, criminal threat and two counts of criminal possession of a firearm by a felon, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records. All of those were in Sedgwick County.

He has more than 50 disciplinary reports from his time in prison. He was last released from prison in November 2022, KDOC records show.