Man thought to be Sandra Bullock stalker found dead at scene of SWAT standoff

LA CRESCENTA (FOX 11 / CNS) - A man thought to be the convicted stalker of actress Sandra Bullock was found dead Wednesday of an apparent suicide following a standoff with a SWAT team at his La Crescenta home.

The standoff began about 6:45 a.m., when police went to the residence in the 2400 block of Harmony Place to serve a warrant, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Drake Madison said.

"The SWAT team was sent due to the suspect's threat of violence to police,'' Madison said without elaborating.

Early Wednesday afternoon, LAPD Officer Tony Im said the standoff had ended and the man had been found dead of a "self-inflicted injury.''

Police did not immediately confirm TMZ.com's report that the suspect was Joshua Corbett, who was sentenced to five years probation last May for stalking the Oscar-winning actress. Property records show that Corbett lives in the 2400 block of Harmony Place.

TMZ reported that police were trying to serve a warrant for a probation violation, but Corbett threatened the officers.

Corbett pleaded no contest last year to two felonies stemming from the break-in that occurred while Bullock was at her home in 2014. He was placed on five years probation and was ordered to continue treatment at a mental health facility.

He was also subject to a 10-year protective order requiring him to stay away from the actress.

Bullock, who won an Oscar for her leading role in ``The Blind Side,'' called 911 on June 8, 2014, while hiding in a bedroom closet, telling a dispatcher a stranger was in her home.

"I'm locked in my closet,'' Bullock told the police operator during the call, which was played during a preliminary hearing. "I have a safe door in my bedroom, and I've locked it, and I'm locked in the closet right now.''

Corbett -- who climbed a fence to get onto the star's property about 5 a.m. that day -- was carrying photos of the actress and a notebook containing a letter to her, according to testimony presented at his preliminary hearing.

Detectives described an arsenal of weapons they said were discovered in the defendant's residence after Los Angeles police searched the converted garage in which he was apparently living. He was not charged with having a weapon with him at the time of the pre-dawn break-in at Bullock's home.

The case against him was put on hold in January of 2017 after one of his attorneys declared doubt about the defendant's mental competence. A judge in March of last year agreed to lower his bail but ordered him to confine himself to a mental treatment facility in Tarzana.