Man dies in exchange of gunfire with deputies inside Barton County barn

UPDATE: The armed man has been identified as 54-year-old Wayne Edwin Simmons, of El Dorado Springs, Mo.

(AP) — A man found hiding in a Missouri barn died in an exchange of gunfire with deputies, authorities said.

The shooting happened around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday near the small town of Lockwood in southwestern Missouri. 

Names of the man killed and the deputies involved in the shooting were not immediately released.

Deputies from Barton and Cedar counties responded to a home as part of an investigation of a stolen truck after the homeowner found the vehicle in his barn, according to a news release from the Western Missouri Sheriff’s Critical Incident Investigation Team. 

The truck had been stolen earlier Wednesday in Barton County.

The news release said an armed man was found in the barn, and deputies and the man exchanged gunfire. 

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. 

The deputies were unhurt.

The incident investigation team is “working to determine the series of events that led up to the shooting,” the release said.