Officer killed after a gunman took hostages at a Pennsylvania hospital – Boston Information, Climate, Sports activities

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

Three staff at UPMC Memorial Hospital, together with a physician, a nurse and a custodian, and two different officers had been shot and wounded within the assault, York County District Lawyer Tim Barker stated. A fourth staffer was injured in a fall.

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

“It is a big loss to our neighborhood,” Barker stated at a press convention following the taking pictures. “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 objective involving one other particular person” and he deliberately focused the employees there.

Nobody answered the door Saturday at an tackle in York believed to be that of Archangel-Ortiz.

The officer who died 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 division in 2022 after 5 years with the Denver Police Division, in line 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 sort A persona and like to achieve all that I do,” his LinkedIn profile stated.

Duarte additionally labored as a patrol officer in Denver, was extremely regarded for his work and was shut pals with different officers, the division there stated in a press release.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro stated he met Saturday night with Duarte’s dad and mom and fellow officers who had been wounded.

“Their willingness to run towards hazard helped save the lives of others,” Shapiro stated on the social platform X. “I’m grateful to them and all regulation enforcement who answered the decision as we speak in York.”

At a makeshift memorial on the entrance steps of the West York Borough Police Division, Linda Shields dropped off roses Saturday and dabbed tears as she considered her son, a police officer in Maryland.

“He was so younger,” Shields stated of Duarte. “It is senseless in any respect.”

Shapiro known as the assault on police and well being care staff “the act of a coward.”

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 taking pictures is a part of a wave of gun violence lately that has swept by way 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 some other career, in line 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 observe his little one’s start. In Might 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.

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Related Press writers Mike Catalini, Trenton, New Jersey, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma Metropolis contributed.