photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

A Douglas County Sheriff's Office vehicle is pictured in January 2022.

A 22-year-old man wanted in Douglas County in connection with child sex crimes killed himself in Iola on Tuesday as police were attempting to arrest him, seven hours after the warrant was announced to the public.

Iola police were attempting to serve the warrant around 6:30 p.m. to a residence in the 800 block of East Jackson Avenue in Iola, which is about 80 miles south of Lawrence. Officers made contact with Chase Dakota Bishop at the residence, but Bishop refused to exit the house. At 7:06 p.m. officers heard a gunshot inside the house and established a perimeter, according to a social media post from the Iola Police Department.

Officers called for assistance from the Kansas Highway Patrol’s Special Reaction Team, who entered the home, after securing a search warrant, and found Bishop dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the post.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office had posted on social media at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday that Bishop was wanted in Douglas County in connection with two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The office has since removed Bishop’s wanted poster. The office confirmed in an email that the Iola Police department informed it of Bishop’s death on Tuesday.

Court records indicate that Bishop was granted diversion in November of 2021 in connection with a felony charge for theft for an incident in August of 2020 and felony criminal threat and misdemeanor criminal damage for an incident in November of 2020. The state filed to revoke that diversion in August of 2022; Bishop failed to appear at a hearing in connection with that revocation, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Records are not available in connection with Bishop’s child sex crime allegations.