Cedar Park Hostage Situation Ends; 1 Officer Remains Hospitalized

CEDAR PARK, TX — A hostage situation in Cedar Park that left three officers injured Sunday evening ended some 18 hours later after the suspect and the last of his hostages exited a home Monday morning, officials said.

Interim Police Chief Mike Harmon said two of the officers who were shot have been released from the hospital while a third was readied to undergo surgery. Also, Harmon reported on Twitter Monday morning at 9 a.m. that the standoff had ended after the suspect, a man in his 20s, exited the home with his last hostage.

Officers had responded to a home amid reports of a man acting aggressively inside a home off Natalie Cove in the Heritage Park subdivision just after 3 p.m. On Sunday evening, Harmon reported the three injured officers had been hospitalized: "Just left the hospital and all 3 officers are in stable condition," Harmon wrote. "The scene in Heritage Park subdivision is still active. Please avoid the area. Thank you to everyone who has expressed their concern."

Following a Sunday evening press conference, law enforcement officials said the suspect was holed up in the home with three family members — including a juvenile — as the standoff in Cedar Park stretched into its fourth hour. “We do have a message for the suspect inside," police said as reported by the Austin American-Statesman. "We want to end this peacefully for everybody involved; that is our main goal.”

The shooting occurred in the Heritage Park subdivision just south of Leander High School in the northern part of the city. Residents reported seeing a police helicopter circling overhead and the presence of dozens of emergency vehicles lining the roadway at Heritage Park Drive and Bagdad Road at 5 p.m.

Police throughout the standoff urged residents in the area to stay home as the situation unfolds, reporting at around 6 p.m. that the person believed to be the shooter was not in custody. Several streets near the shooting scene were closed off to traffic to accommodate the police activity.

Noting they were assisting their Cedar Park counterparts, Leander police urged residents to avoid Bagdad Road between Osage and New Hope, adding that the southbound lane of Bagdad at Heritage were closed to traffic.

Police said details on the incident would be released on the department's Twitter page: "Please be advised: the only confirmable information is going to be posted by us on this page," officials wrote.

We are on scene of a shooting where multiple Cedar Park Police Officers have been shot while responding to a call at a home off Natalie Cove.
Subject is barricaded inside the home and multiple law enforcement agencies are on scene. pic.twitter.com/4Wwel2jUVe
— Cedar Park Police (@CedarParkPD) August 16, 2020

This is a developing story. Patch will update when more.

Patch staff writer Tony Cantú contributed to this story.