[NEWS] Suspect in Philadelphia police standoff taken into custody – Loganspace AI

(Reuters) – Police said they took into custody early on Thursday the suspect in a seven-hour shooting standoff in a north Philadelphia home that left six officers wounded after a barrage of bullets.

The standoff, which started after a gunman opened fireplace on police officers looking out for to attend a felony narcotics warrant, followed a string of mass shootings in California, Texas and Ohio, in which gunmen veteran semi-automatic rifles.

SWAT groups had been amassed securing the house after expressionless night time, said police spokesman Eric Gripp, nevertheless few crucial points had been directly on hand about how the suspected gunman, identified by media as Maurice Hill, 36, was as soon as taken into custody.

Police moved in about 5 hours into the standoff, which lasted from 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday till comely after expressionless night time. The six officers had been wounded after attempting to attend the warrant to any individual in a house, police said. All are anticipated to get better.

Media said the gunman was as soon as armed with a semi-automatic rifle, identical to the well-liked AK-47, and several handguns. Some experiences said now not lower than 100 shots had been fired.

A SWAT crew rescued two police officers and three civilians who had been trapped within the house with the suspect, police said on Wednesday.

SWAT officers rescued the officers and three suspects by stealth, without the gunman appealing they’d entered the house, police commissioner Richard Ross said.

“We’ve gone from a hostage difficulty to a barricade since the total hostages had been taken out safely,” Ross told journalists, along side that it was as soon as “amazing” there had now not been an even bigger tragedy.

All six wounded officers had been launched from sanatorium, with one officer surviving a bullet graze to the head and any other after a bullet hit physique armor on his attend.

“Many of them had to flee through windows and doorways to flee from a barrage of bullets,” Ross added.

The gunman fired on a SWAT truck parked start air the arrangement within the Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood, with rounds peppering structures at some level of the road as residents stayed in their homes.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, citing police sources, identified the suspected gunman as Hill, 36, a Philadelphia man with a ancient previous of gun, pills and assault convictions.

Attorney Shaka Mzee Johnson, who, court docket documents show mask, recently represented Hill, did now in the end acknowledge to a seek data from for insist.

Ross said the gunman stopped firing as night time instruct in, fuelling optimism for an eventual renounce.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said he was as soon as offended the gunman was as soon as in a field to amass such firepower.

“We’ve got to catch these weapons out of of us’s arms,” Kenney said after visiting wounded officers in sanatorium.

“This authorities, each on a federal and states stage, don’t must attain anything else about getting these weapons off the streets and out of the arms of criminals.”

President Donald Trump was as soon as monitoring the difficulty in Philadelphia, the White Residence said.