Police said no officers were hurt and the man was later found dead inside an apartment bathroom.
LEAVENWORTH, KS — A wanted man who police said fired multiple rounds at Leavenworth officers and U.S. Marshals during a long standoff was later found dead inside an apartment after authorities spent nearly 11 hours trying to take him into custody.
Authorities identified the man as Joseph Lee Dickey, 36, who was being sought on felony charges tied to a Feb. 14 shooting case. Investigators said officers did not return fire and no law enforcement officers were injured. The confrontation shut down part of a residential area in Leavenworth for much of Thursday and into early Friday, then ended with officials saying Dickey appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Police said the standoff began shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday when detectives with the Leavenworth Police Department and members of the U.S. Marshals Service went to an apartment complex in the 700 block of North 13th Terrace near Barnett Avenue to arrest Dickey on an outstanding warrant. Authorities said they had been looking for him for weeks in connection with multiple felony allegations. When officers located him at the apartment, he refused to come out or surrender. Negotiations stretched through the afternoon as officers held the scene and tried to get him to leave peacefully. At about 5:15 or 5:16 p.m., according to officials, Dickey opened fire from inside the apartment with a rifle, sending multiple rounds toward officers and marshals positioned outside. Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said no officers fired back. The standoff then continued for hours before officers entered the apartment later that night.
When officers finally went inside, they found Dickey dead in a bathroom, authorities said. Officials described the wound as an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The scene was not cleared until about 12:30 a.m. Friday, showing how long investigators and tactical teams remained at the apartment after the shooting. Police Chief Pat Kitchens said officers had been trying to locate Dickey for several weeks. The warrant they were serving was tied to charges of two counts of aggravated assault and one count of criminal discharge of a firearm, according to local officials. Those charges stemmed from a Feb. 14 case. Authorities have not publicly released many details about that earlier shooting, and court records connected to the warrant were not fully outlined in public statements released Friday. Officials also had not said by Friday whether anyone else was inside nearby units during the standoff, how many rounds were fired, or whether the apartment building itself suffered major damage beyond what could be seen from shattered glass and doors after the scene was secured.
The case drew a large law enforcement response in a city that sits along the Missouri River in northeast Kansas, about 30 miles northwest of Kansas City. The neighborhood around North 13th Terrace became the center of a slow-moving, high-risk operation that lasted through daylight and into the night. News photographs from the scene showed broken windows and damage around the apartment after the confrontation ended. Officers blocked access to the area while detectives, marshals and tactical personnel worked the scene. For residents, the most immediate consequence was a long disruption in a normally quiet residential block. For law enforcement, the stakes were twofold: arresting a wanted suspect on pending violent-crime allegations and containing gunfire once the suspect began shooting from inside the apartment. The fact that no officer or bystander was reported hurt became a key part of officials’ account Friday. Even so, several questions remained unanswered, including what led Dickey to fire after hours of negotiations and whether investigators recovered additional weapons or evidence from the apartment.
The legal case against Dickey ends with his death, but the official investigation does not. Police and prosecutors still must document the exchange, collect physical evidence and complete the death inquiry. Because officers were serving a warrant and came under fire, investigators are expected to complete detailed reports covering the timeline, the response by tactical teams and the recovery of any firearms inside the apartment. Authorities have said officers did not return fire, a detail that narrows one part of the review, but they still must establish the exact sequence from the first contact shortly after 1 p.m. to the apartment entry late that night. Officials had not announced a formal public briefing schedule beyond statements released Friday. It also was not clear Friday whether any additional records from the Feb. 14 shooting case would be released soon. The next public milestones are likely to be the completion of investigative reports, any autopsy or medical examiner findings, and the release of more court information tied to the original warrant and charges.
The human side of the standoff came through in the long wait as officers held positions outside a modest apartment building while neighbors watched a major police operation unfold on their block. Kitchens said officers had been searching for Dickey for weeks, a remark that underscored how long the case had been building before it ended in a single day of gunfire and isolation. Thompson said no officers returned fire, emphasizing the restraint officials said was used once shots came from inside the apartment. By early Friday, investigators were still working under floodlights and moving through a scene marked by broken glass and damaged entry points. The result was a case that shifted from an attempted arrest to a death investigation without the public courtroom process that usually follows felony charges. For the city, the lasting record now will come from police files, prosecutors’ statements and whatever additional findings emerge as the investigation is closed out.
As of Saturday, authorities said the suspect was dead, no officers had been injured and the residential scene had been cleared. The next step is the release of fuller investigative findings, including records that may clarify the Feb. 14 case and the final hours of Thursday’s standoff.
Author note: Last updated March 14, 2026.