TAYLORSVILLE, Utah — A massive manhunt Thursday morning for a suspect who fired shots at an officer was ended by a sixth grader.
12-year-old Lucas Mann was getting ready for the school day when he wound up face-to-face with the suspect.
The first confrontation between police and that suspect, and the exchange of gunfire, happened around 4:30 a.m. For two and a half hours, despite a massive search, police still hadn’t found the gunman.
Massive manhunt ends in Taylorsville after suspect found dead
Then around 7 a.m., Lucas went downstairs to wake up a sibling, and that’s when he made the frightening discovery.
“I go downstairs and turn on the light and I open my brother Ethan‘s door and I’m walking and I hear a soft thud on the window and I turn and then I see him," said Lucas. “I just screamed, I think I said, 'there’s a robber in our window well!' And then I yelled, 'what do we do?' And [my parents] told me to get in their room and hide there."
And then they called 911? "Yes."
The suspect then ran off into a neighbors yard. But the 911 call helped officers on the ground narrow down the search area to Lucas' street where they quickly confronted the suspect and that’s when he took his own life.
The deceased suspect was later identified as 29-year-old Aaron Troy Michael Rehn.
During the initial exchange of gunfire on 4700 S., one bullet went into a nearby care facility, apparently through a wall, and some of that shrapnel wound up injuring a resident there.
They apparently suffered some cuts and bruising to their collarbone and shoulder area but they’re going to be fine.
Meanwhile, Lucas says his parents let him take the day off from school today so he could decompress after a very stressful morning.
