Police surrounded an apartment building in northern Florida and exchanged heavy gunfire with a suspect barricaded inside.
Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford said the suspect in the lengthy standoff and shootout with police at an apartment in the Florida Panhandle has been found dead.
Police officers used an armoured vehicle to break into the apartment in Panama City and a robot then searched the residence, confirming the man was dead.
The sheriff said the standoff lasted for hours as responding police exchanged gunfire with an assailant shooting from an elevated position with a rifle.
Ford said several officers were pinned down by the gunfire for long periods of time.
"We were just blessed that we didn't lose multiple officers and citizens today."
The suspect was identified as Kevin Robert Holroyd.
Earlier, the Walton County sheriff's department said on their official Twitter account that the standoff in Panama City was connected with the suspicious death earlier in the day of a 30-year-old at Clinton Street in Santa Rosa Beach. It did not elaborate.
That community is about 65km west of Panama City along the north Florida coast.
-AP