Police pronounced the suspect dead in the Pittsburgh shooting, which spanned hours in the neighbourhood of Garfield.
He was identified as 63-year-old William Hardison Sr, a source confirmed to The Independent; his son, William Hardison Jr, told WTAE that he had been begging his father to “stand down” and tried calling him throughout the day to no avail.
“The subject in this incident was pronounced deceased by @PghEMS at 5:08 p.m. EST,” Pittsbugh Public Safety tweeted after hours of gunshots being fired.
At approximately 11am ET on Wednesday, Pittsburgh Public Safety urged residents to avoid the area of the 4800 block of Broad Street and North Mathilda Street due to a shooting.
“This is an extremely active situation with shots continuing to be fired,” they wrote on Twitter/X about 20 minutes into the incident.
A reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that “hundreds of rounds” were being fired and multiple law enforcement divisions were responding to the incident.
Nearly an hour later, around 12pm ET, officers began to evacuate residents in homes nearby and guide them away from the shooting and to safety.
The shooting began after deputies from the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office went to serve an eviction notice to a resident when the suspect “turned violent and began shooting,” a spokesperson for the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office told The Independent.
He added that one sergeant suffered from “a minor non-gunfire related injury while avoiding the incoming gunfire. He is ok.”