Jason Lawless, a police sniper in Tulsa, Oklahoma, saved a kidnapped toddler from a hostage situation Tuesday by shooting her captor dead with a single shot.
According to The Washington Post, suspect Salvador Reyes showed up at his estranged wife’s home around midnight and began to argue with her, then grabbed her 2-year-old daughter while the woman, her boyfriend, and three other young children escaped.
A three-hour standoff ensued, during which a Spanish-speaking police officer tried repeatedly to get Reyes to release the girl, who was not his daughter. At one point Reyes stood on the home’s balcony and pointed his handgun at the officers, then at the child. When he came out of the house again holding the toddler at around 3 a.m., Lawless fired the fatal shot to Reyes’ head, killing him instantly. The toddler was not hurt.
In Tulsa, the snipers are called precision rifle operators, and officer Perry Lewis trains them. “We’ll be able to take care of the problem before anyone even knew about it,” Lewis told 12 News. Lewis also called hostage situations like this one “unnerving” and a “worse case scenario.”
Lawless has been a patrol officer in the Tulsa Police Department since 1998 and is part of the Special Operations Team that deals with hostage situations. Lawless was put on paid administrative leave after the shooting, which is normal protocol in an officer-involved shooting, The Washington Post reported.
The police department has not released the names of those involved in the domestic dispute and hostage situation, other than Reyes.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.