2 Adults, child found dead after 'domestic situation'

Let me go ahead and give you a live look at right now in Hopkins, Minnesota. We are getting ready for an update in about 15 minutes or so on this situation here. And there's not a whole lot of confirmed information right now, so we want to be careful about what we say. But we know there is an active police scene or has been at Brown Bear Daycare in the city of Hopkins, Minnesota, a news conference scheduled for 1230 Eastern. That's 1130 Central, Minnesota, in the central time zone there. So we're waiting for an update. Fox 9 up in Minneapolis-St. Paul reporting that an officer blocking that scene told a reporter at the scene that that area was very volatile, that police had been working as well to try to reunify families with their children who have been at that daycare. So we have been continuing to monitor that. Again, we are anticipating and expecting an update any minute now. In fact, it looks like on this camera here we may be getting an update right now. I'm going to go ahead and listen in for a minute. I am Police Chief Brent Johnson with the Hopkins Police Department. We're here this morning due to a tragic incident occurring on the 200 block of Tyler Avenue North in Hopkins. Hopkins Police and multiple agencies responded to a domestic situation at an in-home daycare. Upon arrival, officers located a deceased male, female, and juvenile victim. There were other children present within the daycare. And we were able to get them out of the daycare and reunify them with their parents. At this time, there's no outstanding threats in the community. This is an isolated incident, and we are continuing to investigate it throughout the day and probably evening. I can provide you more information as we gather the information throughout the day. Is this family? This appears, all the victims appear to be a part of one family. How many kids were inside the home when it happened? There were seven children within the daycare. One is deceased. Can you give an approximate age of that child? I honestly do not know. Were there any other injuries besides the three that are deceased? There were no other injuries to any other children inside the daycare. Chief, is this a house that has been known to y'all, or is there any history with this couple that you know of? At this point, I do not have that information. Did this happen? This happened just after nine this morning. Was the person who perpetrated the attack one of the deceased, or do we know where they are? We believe the perpetrator is deceased. Is the perpetrator the male or the female? We believe it's the male. What's the relationship of the adults who were deceased to the daycare, if any or two? It's believed to be the daycare owners. Do they live there? We believe so, yes. Both of them? Yes. Are they, what's their relationship, husband and wife? I honestly do not know the marital status of them. But the child that was killed is their child? Believed to be their child, yes. Can you just talk about the gravity of this situation, dealing with something like this, and then also having other people's children in the home at this time that this happened? Well, this is a horrific, tragic situation for any community, especially here in Hopkins, where we don't see this type of crime. It's a rarity here in Hopkins. We're a very safe community, and the impact is felt not only here, but elsewhere for every parent who has a child in a daycare setting or anywhere where they have immediate control over their child. So yes, it's heartbreaking. Chief, I'm sorry if I missed this. Was this a stabbing? What was the weapon involved here? At this time, we are still trying to determine the weapons involved. No, at this point. Were police notified about this, and what sort of response did you guys have right away? Our response was due to a parent of one of the daycare children who had arrived to drop off their children. Did they witness it? I believe so. What are the ages of the range of the children there and the deceased? I mean, they were all very, very young children. It was somewhere around that age or less. Do we know if there was any no contact, domestic restraining order, anything like that involved in this couple? Again, we're trying to dive into the background here. But initially, our goal was to get here to protect the scene as quick as possible with multiple agencies. That's why I had a very large response. At that point, the goal is just to preserve the scene and make sure that everyone was safe. And to aid as quick as possible. Are the kids all back with their parents now? Yes, all the children have been reunified with their parents. That's why this took so long to come out here. Can you just tell me again your reaction? I mean, you hit on it a little bit. This really is a nightmare situation for a parent. You drop your kid off at daycare and then you find out this happened. Yeah, I mean, there's no worse scenario than this. Walk your child to somewhere you think is safe and you get that phone call. I think we can all relate who have children and those who don't. This is just a tragic situation anywhere in the world. Let alone here in Hopkins. And again, this is a rarity and we will continue to investigate it as thorough and transparent as possible. Chief, two questions here. Maybe too early. Do we know did the perpetrator take his own life? Preliminarily, we believe that to be the case. OK, and how are your officers holding up to? I mean, this is not just for the community. This is going to be traumatic for them as well. The initial officers on scene. This was a tragic situation for them as well. And I can see on the look on their faces that this was one of those ones that you'll remember throughout your entire career, if not life. Do you have any expectations about when you'll have other updates? And will it be happening here at the scene or someplace else? I was hoping to do one at four o'clock today at City Hall. I also have Mayor Hanlon from the city here present with us today. And we'll put out more information as we gather the intelligence from the scene. At this point in time, I can't tell you that information. We'll be able to tell you later this afternoon. But there's three deceased individuals in the house, all believed to be related. Did the husband live at the house at the time? I don't have that information. Thank you. Thanks, Chief. Thank you, Chief. So that's a news conference wrapping up in Hopkins, Minnesota, where we heard from the police chief there talking about and giving some more information about what we know about that situation, which was described essentially as a double murder and suicide at an in-home daycare, a domestic situation there. Six other kids at the daycare at the time were unharmed. They have been taken out of that home and reunified with their families. Just a heartbreaking situation there. Now, we still don't know a whole lot. Some still some unconfirmed information as far as what happened here. They did not confirm whether when they were asked if this was a stabbing, they did not confirm that. So they are still trying to determine the weapon that was involved here. But a domestic situation, three people dead, a man, a woman and a child, all part of the same family. The family that owned that daycare, investigators believe at this time. And again, a what police just described as a murder suicide. And it also sounds like the person who called this into 9-1-1 was someone who witnessed this happening. We may be hearing now from another official at the scene here. Let's go ahead and listen back in. Anything else you want to add here? I mean, this is obviously horrific for anybody. Yeah, this is, I mean, I think the first and foremost is to know that there's not an ongoing threat. I think when you see a lot of police cars in our neighborhood and a lot of folks reacting and responding to know that there's not an additional threat to our community. But yes, we are all just reeling from this tragic incident that's going on in our city right now. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. That was Mayor Patrick Hanlon reacting to some of those details that just came out. And as you heard in the briefing from the police chief, they'll be giving an update around 5 o'clock Eastern. That's 4 p.m. Central time. Some more details we should have this evening. They may be able to share a little bit more information. These live aerial images as well coming in from that neighborhood, that daycare at a home in Hopkins, just in a neighborhood there. About seven kids were there at the time. One of them was found dead, six others unharmed. They have been reunified and reunited with their families. We'll continue to monitor this as any more information comes out in the next little bit.