Police officer, gunman dead after hostages taken at Pennsylvania hospital – National

A person armed with a pistol and carrying zip ties entered a Pennsylvania hospital’s intensive care unit on Saturday and took workers members hostage earlier than he was killed by police in a shootout that additionally left an officer lifeless, authorities stated.

Three staffers at UPMC Memorial Hospital, together with a health care provider, a nurse and a custodian, and two different officers had been shot and wounded within the assault, York County District Legal professional Tim Barker stated. A fourth workers member was injured throughout a fall.

Gunfire erupted after officers went to interact the shooter, who Barker recognized as Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49. He stated Archangel-Ortiz was holding at gunpoint a feminine workers member who had her palms tied with zip ties when police opened fireplace.

“It is a enormous loss to our neighborhood,” Barker stated at a press convention following the capturing. “It’s completely clear, and past any and all doubt, that the officers had been justified in taking their motion utilizing lethal drive.”

Barker added that whereas the investigation is in its early levels, it seems Archangel-Ortiz had earlier contact with the hospital’s ICU earlier within the week for “a medical function involving one other particular person” and that he deliberately focused the employees there.

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The officer who died within the capturing was recognized as Andrew Duarte of the West York Borough Police Division.

“All of us have damaged hearts and are grieving at his loss,” West York Borough Supervisor Shawn Mauck instructed The Related Press.

Duarte was a regulation enforcement veteran who joined the West York Borough Police Division in 2022 after 5 years with the Denver Police Division in Colorado, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile. He described receiving a “hero award” in 2021 from Moms Towards Drunk Driving for his work in impaired driving enforcement for the state of Colorado.

“I’ve a kind A character and like to achieve all that I do,” his LinkedIn profile stated.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro described the assault on police and well being care staff as “the act of a coward.”

“Let it not be misplaced on anybody the act of extraordinary bravery and braveness by the well being care staff right here, by the regulation enforcement professionals … who ran towards hazard to maintain folks secure,” Shapiro stated.

UPMC Memorial is a five-story, 104-bed hospital that opened in 2019 in York, a metropolis of about 40,000 folks recognized for its creation of York Peppermint Patties in 1940.

The capturing is a part of a wave of gun violence lately that has swept by means of U.S. hospitals and medical facilities, which have struggled to adapt to the rising threats. Such assaults have helped make well being care one of many nation’s most violent fields, with staff struggling extra nonfatal accidents from office violence than staff in every other occupation, in keeping with the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

In 2023, a shooter killed a safety guard within the foyer of New Hampshire’s state psychiatric hospital earlier than being fatally shot by a state trooper. In 2022, a person killed two staff at a Dallas hospital whereas there to look at his youngster’s start. In Could of that 12 months, a person opened fireplace in a medical heart ready room in Atlanta, killing one lady and wounding 4. And only one month later, a gunman killed his surgeon and three different folks at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical workplace as a result of he blamed the physician for his persevering with ache after an operation.

Related Press author Sean Murphy in Oklahoma Metropolis contributed to this report.

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