PHILADELPHIA (AP) – An hours-long standoff where a gunman shot at police, wounding six of them, as he was barricaded inside a Philadelphia home somehow ended with no fatalities.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross, who spent hours Wednesday negotiating with the gunman through the phone, said the situation that unfolded “could have been far worse.”
“This was a very dynamic situation, one that I hope we never see again,” he said yesterday outside the Philadelphia Police Department, which is in the process of investigating the scene.
The gunman eventually came out of the home early yesterday after police deployed tear gas in the building. He was taken to a hospital for evaluation and then placed into custody.
A law enforcement official identified the suspect as Maurice Hill. The official said the 36-year-old has a criminal record that included firearms charges. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The standoff started around 4:30 p.m. (4:30 a.m. yesterday, Manila time) as officers went to a home in a north Philadelphia neighborhood of brick and stone rowhomes to serve a narcotics warrant in an operation “that went awry almost immediately,” Ross said.
Many officers “had to escape through windows and doors to get (away) from a barrage of bullets,” Ross said.
The six officers who were struck by gunfire have been released from hospitals, Philadelphia police Sgt. Eric Gripp.
Two other officers were trapped inside the house for about five hours after the shooting broke out but were freed by a SWAT team well after darkness fell on the residential neighborhood.
Ross said the reason he made the unusual decision to be the person negotiating with Hill was because he was “so worried” about his officers stuck inside.
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was 200 feet away,” he said yesterday.
