The man who killed himself at the end of Friday's police chase tried to run down an officer beforehand, Casper police said Monday.

The chase ended when the man stopped in an Evansville intersection and came out of the truck with a shotgun under his chin, Lt. Chris Walsh said.

"As the officers were ordering him to drop the weapon, the driver of the truck fired the weapon and took his own life," Walsh said.

The incident is being investigated by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation because three different local law enforcement agencies were involved. Authorities have not released the man's name.

Monday morning, Walsh offered new details about the events leading up to the suicide:

Just after 3 p.m. Friday, Casper police received reports that a man on the south end of 26th Street was trying to break into a car with a woman inside. Witnesses said he had what appeared to be a hammer in his hand.

One caller said the man managed to get in, but the woman got out and ran down the street. She was chased by the man, who was by then driving a white Dodge truck.

When an officer arrived, he found the woman near the Casper Municipal Golf Course. As he started to investigate, the man in the truck tried to run him down.

"The officer managed to jump out of the way of the truck before it could strike him," Walsh said.

After the man's description was broadcast over the police radio, another officer spotted the pickup in northern Casper. A chase began that eventually led to Interstate 25 and then Evansville and included Evansville police officers and Natrona County Sheriff's deputies.

The man, who was the only person in the pickup, stopped at the intersection of First and Williams streets. He got out of the car with the shotgun and did not respond to officers' orders to put down the gun.

From the time the truck stopped, Walsh estimated it took less than a minute for the man to shoot himself. The chase itself lasted less than 10 minutes.

The man stopped on his own and officers did not deploy spike strips or barricades during the chase, police said. His ties to the Evansville neighborhood remain under investigation.

Walsh declined to comment on the relationship between the man and the woman, but he did say the officers who responded were initially investigating an Family Violence Protection Act incident. Such incidents are associated with domestic or family violence.

Reach crime reporter Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@trib.com.