Alva Review-Courier -

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — No charges will be filed in the death of a 56-year-old Wichita man who was killed by police last year during an apparent psychotic episode in which he fired 83 rounds from his apartment, the county's top prosecutor said Monday.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett told reporters via a Zoom news conference that under the circumstances he could not charge the two officers who fired at Fred Burton. The hours-long standoff that began shortly before 2 a.m. on May 23, 2019, when a neighbor in the apartment complex reported hearing what sounded like explosions and found bullet holes in his wall.

Bennett recounted how officers used an armored vehicle to evacuate other occupants of the apartment complex to safety. The SWAT team used a public address system to contact Burton using a "safe word" that Burton had once given the apartment manager so he could distinguish reality from the voices in his head, he said.

During the standoff, Burton came to a sliding door in his apartment, extended a middle finger and exposed himself to officers, according to the report released by the district attorney's office. Smoke rounds were fired in an attempt to get him out. Burton fired at officers, and two of them returned fire.

Burton was found dead inside the apartment along with a Remington .22 rifle and 83 spent shell casings. More than 30 bullet holes were in the wall. A toxicology report later determined he had methamphetamine in his blood.

"This is another in a long line of situations where people with mental illness and methamphetamine onboard, engage in behavior, engage with the police and it turns out in a very unfortunate manner," Bennett said.

Under Kansas law, prosecutors would have to establish without a reasonable doubt that the shooting was not in self-defense or in the defense of others — something he could not do under the circumstances of this case, he said.