Multiple law enforcement officers are injured after a standoff Wednesday night between police and a man who was holding his wife hostage in their Connecticut home that ended in explosions.
The Yale-New Haven Hospital said on Twitter that it received a total of nine patients in connection with the explosion, which occurred in North Haven on Quinnipiac Avenue.
A woman was reportedly held hostage for days in that Connecticut home, the Hartford Courant reports, and contacted North Haven police Wednesday afternoon. Officers then spent “several hours” trying to get the woman’s husband out, according to the Courant, and ultimately engaged in a standoff with the man.
As the SWAT team attempted to negotiate with the man, police searched the property, the Washington Post reports, and entered a barn, which set of “a loud explosion that shook the neighborhood and could be felt from several blocks away” Wednesday night.
Residents in the area took to the North Haven Police Department’s Facebook page to comment on the explosions they heard. Multiple explosions followed, the Post reported, leading officers to think the barn may have been booby-trapped.
Explosion then fire during North Haven stand-off. We’re on Quinnipiac Ave. #wfsb pic.twitter.com/iPt7FQSATV
— Matthew Campbell (@mgmcampbell) May 3, 2018
“Did anyone just hear a loud explosion?” one resident commented on the police department’s Facebook post about the barricaded subject on Quinnipiac Avenue. “My whole house just shook.”
Five East Haven police officers, three North Haven police officer and one officer from Branford, all of whom were members of the SWAT team, were hospitalized.
“They all suffered injuries consistent with the blast,” North Haven Deputy Police Chief Jonathan Mulhern told the Courant.
Sources told the Courant that the woman, who filed for divorce from the man last month, had been severely beaten. She is currently being treated in a local hospital.
As of Thursday morning, the officers are in fair condition, and authorities say that a body has been found in the barn. Officials believe the husband was inside the barn, the Courant reports, but the remains have not yet been identified as officials are waiting for an autopsy.
“North Haven is a very quiet suburb..and we don’t usually see these situations here in town,” North Haven First Selectman Michael Freda told reporters Wednesday night. He added that there was a “tremendous” response by first responders.
