At least 75 local police enforcement officials in Pittsburgh have been placed on administrative leave after an encounter with a man that lasted for several hours and ended with the suspect opening fire on sheriff’s deputies who were trying to serve an eviction notice.
On Wednesday, the notice was being served to the man in the Garfield neighborhood of the city when the man “became violent and began shooting,” according to the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office. The man was shot and killed. Following a period of intermittent gunfire lasting around 6.5 hours, the lifeless corpse of the suspect, who was later identified as William Hardison Sr., was found inside the residence.
Mike Manko, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said in an email that as a direct consequence of the event, sixteen officers have been put on administrative leave.
According to Manko, the sheriff had personally phoned each officer and informed them that they would all be forced to have psychiatric evaluations before returning to duty the next week.
Twelve more officers from the Allegheny County Police Department have been placed on administrative leave. An representative of the department confirmed that all twelve policemen had safely emptied their weapons, and they also confirmed that the leave was standard operating practice.
According to a statement made by the Pittsburgh Police Department, 47 officers are now on paid administrative leave because they were involved in the event. There is a variety of options for leave, ranging from three days to five days.
Allegheny County Sheriff Kevin Kraus said that he lost count of how many times the suspect and the police exchanged “volleys” of gunfire with each other throughout the incident.
“I mean, he had a lot of ammunition in that house, and certainly… all of us were strapped, you know, with ammunition, and we were calling for additional ammunition,” Kraus said. As I was saying before, we provided him with a number of opportunities to present himself.
As authorities from numerous levels of government, both local and federal, hurried to the scene, it became unclear how many rounds had been fired.
Lee Schmidt, the Director of Public Safety for the city of Pittsburgh, issued a statement to the press in which he made a commitment to give “all the services they need to help process what they have witnessed” to municipal employees and citizens.
As a consequence of the tragedy, “our Public Safety personnel — a family,” Schmidt said, “the community of Garfield, and indeed the entire City of Pittsburgh,” all suffered “collective trauma” today.