YORK, Pa. (AP) — A person armed with a pistol and carrying zip ties entered a Pennsylvania hospital’s intensive care unit on Saturday and took employees members hostage earlier than he was killed by police in a shootout that additionally left a former Denver officer useless, 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 employees 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 employees member who had her arms tied with zip ties when police opened hearth.
“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 pressure.”
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 goal involving one other particular person” and that he deliberately focused the employees there.
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 informed The Related Press.
Duarte was a legislation enforcement veteran who joined the West York Borough Police Division in 2022 after 5 years with the Denver Police Division in Colorado, in response to 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 sort A persona and like to reach 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 legislation enforcement professionals … who ran towards hazard to maintain individuals secure,” Shapiro stated.
UPMC Memorial is a five-story, 104-bed hospital that opened in 2019 in York, a metropolis of about 40,000 individuals 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 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 some other occupation, in response to 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 observe his baby’s delivery. In Might of that 12 months, a person opened hearth 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 individuals at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, medical workplace as a result of he blamed the physician for his persevering with ache after an operation.
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Related Press author Sean Murphy in Oklahoma Metropolis contributed to this report.
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