One standoff ends with suicide; the other concludes peacefully

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Two standoffs this week had vastly different endings.

Ernie Mincey fired a couple shots inside 1102 Washington St. as his wife and son ran from the house about 2:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Mincey, 65, fired one more shot, a bullet into his chest, which killed him, Tippecanoe County Coroner Donna Avolt said, noting that Mincey's death is preliminarily ruled as suicide.

When Lafayette police arrived on scene, Mincey likely was already dead.

But because no one answered the door when officers arrived, police called out the SWAT team, which entered the house about 6 p.m., police said Tuesday during the standoff.

Team members found Mincey dead in the living from a single gunshot wound, Lafayette police said in a Wednesday news release, which noted that officers did not fire any rounds from their weapons.

About 15 hours after Lafayette police's standoff with Mincey officially ended, Tippecanoe County sheriff's deputies serving arrest warrants found themselves confronted with 58-year-old Edrie Scott Hunt, who brandished a gun and threatened suicide, Tippecanoe County Sheriff Barry Richard said of the 8:45 a.m. incident.

For six-and-a-half hours, deputies, including the special response team, surrounded a rural home in the 900 block of East Tippecanoe County Road 1300 South, trying to coax Hunt to surrender.

The incident ended at 3:18 p.m. when Hunt surrendered.

Hunt's actions, however, were not without consequences.

In addition to the warrants — one to revoke his probation from 2005 charges, and another for drug-related charges in Montgomery County — Hunt faces a new preliminary charge of criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon.

He remained in the Tippecanoe County Jail on Thursday, according to online jail records.