By Mark ScolforoThe Related Press
YORK, Pa. (AP) — A person armed with a pistol and carrying zip ties entered a Pennsylvania hospital’s intensive care unit on Feb. 22 and took workers members hostage earlier than he was killed by police in a shootout that additionally left an officer useless, authorities mentioned.
Three staffers 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 Legal professional Tim Barker mentioned. 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 mentioned Archangel-Ortiz was holding at gunpoint a feminine workers member who had her arms tied with zip ties when police opened hearth.
“It is a big loss to our neighborhood,” Barker mentioned 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 power.”
Barker added that whereas the investigation is in its early phases, 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.
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 legislation enforcement veteran who joined the West York Borough Police Division in 2022 after 5 years with the Denver Police Division in Colorado, in accordance 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 mentioned.
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 protected,” Shapiro mentioned.
UPMC Memorial is a five-story, 104-bed hospital that opened in 2019 in York, a metropolis of about 40,000 individuals identified 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 career, in accordance 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 baby’s beginning. In Might of that yr, a person opened hearth in a medical middle ready room in Atlanta, killing one girl 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.
