Seattle police officers injured in house fire that left one victim, suspect dead

Seattle police say a man and a woman were found dead in a burning home following a domestic incident that officers were responding to Wednesday morning. 

Police received a call from a home in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood around 8:30 a.m. Operators heard a man yelling and a woman in distress, police said.

Upon arrival, officers knocked on the door, and a man inside told them he was armed and would not come out, police said. Officers entered the house after the suspect told police a woman inside the house was injured. 

The man barricaded himself in a room and told officers he was carrying a knife. Seattle Police Department’s Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz later said that the man tried to stab the officers. Afterward, the officers realized the basement was on fire. 

A SWAT team, equipped with oxygen masks arrived on the scene and entered the home to locate the suspect and victim, but the smoke and flames became too much, and they had to step back, police said. 

Seattle fire crews extinguished the fire and entered the home where they found one person – believed to be the suspect – and a woman both deceased inside the home.  

Four officers suffered from smoke exposure and were treated at Harborview Medical Center. The identities of the suspect and the victim have not been released.