Coroner: 1 dead after incident involving armed individual, large police response

One person died by suicide in rural Fayette County Monday, according to the Fayette County Coroner’s office.

The incident began as a trespassing call but escalated, according to Lexington police. Police responded to find someone armed with a gun. As officers made efforts to resolve the situation, they called in armored vehicles and shut down I-75 from exit 99 to exit 104.

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn confirmed that an unidentified man died by suicide after police responded to the incident in the 5700 block of Athens Walnut Hill Road, which is a farm near I-75 in Fayette County.

Police said they made efforts to communicate with the individual who had a gun and “distance him from that firearm so we can just have a safe outcome for everybody.”

Ginn said there were multiple factors indicating the man died by suicide. He said no Lexington officers fired their weapons.

“After that incident happened, police were in lots of different locations. They did respond to him when he went down and provided first aid,” Ginn said. “They did scoop him on a transport rug-like deal that they’ve got and they brought him to the staging area, where our fire department was. At that time, they determined that death had occurred and we were notified then.”

The incident involved two people, but one of them distanced themselves from the person who had a gun, according to police. The second individual has been in communication with police.

Law enforcement officers were seen arriving to the scene in armored vehicles and police blocked off I-75 near Athens, a community in rural Fayette County. The fire department also had several vehicles on scene, including a large emergency medical services vehicle. Kentucky State Police were seen in the area as well.

Police confirmed that I-75 was shut down in both directions between exits 99 and 104 for “an active police scene.”

I-75 reopened less than an hour after it was initially shut down, according to the Lexington Traffic Management Center.

Most of the emergency response vehicles left the scene prior to 1:30 p.m.

This story was originally published May 16, 2022 at 12:42 PM.