A father opened fire at a home in Spring, a suburb of Houston, Texas, killing six people in an apparent domestic dispute.  Four of those killed were his own children, plus two adults.  He critically wounded his 15-year old daughter, who managed to call police to say the man was on his way to kill their grandparents.

Police made it to the second house just moments before the gunman pulled up and then tried to escape.  After a slow police chase in which the man threatened to shoot himself, cops cornered him in a cul de sac, sandwiching his Honda sedan between two enormous armored vehicles.  The tyres were already flattened by spike strips – the suspect wasn’t going anywhere, and with scores of heavily armed, militarized cops up and down the block, he wasn’t getting out to pick a fight.

Deputy Thomas Gilliland of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office says that during that time, there were “two hours of constant talking with a man armed with a pistol to his head and who had just killed six people”.  Eventually, the man gave up.

Killed were two boys, ages four and 14; two girls, ages seven and nine; a 39-year-old man; and a 33-year-old woman.  All of the children were the man’s with his estranged wife who lives in another state.