A police officer was killed and five other people were wounded when a man took medical staff hostage and opened fire at a York, Pennsylvania, hospital on Saturday morning local time, officials said.
The gunman, identified by authorities as Diogenes Archangel Ortiz, 49, was also killed, authorities said. UPMC Memorial confirmed his death in a statement on Facebook.
Two other law enforcement officers were shot by the gunman and are in stable condition, York County District Attorney Tim Barker said at an afternoon news conference.
Ortiz was holding an ICU employee hostage at gunpoint when officers engaged the suspect, Barker said.
An intensive care unit doctor, nurse and a custodian suffered gunshot wounds and a fourth employee was injured in a fall, Barker said.
“No patients have been injured. The hospital is now secure,” Susan Manko, spokesperson for UPMC Memorial in York, told CNN.
The threat has “been neutralised and an investigation is underway,” Ted Czech, a public information officer at York County’s Office of Emergency Management, told CNN.
The officer who died was Andrew Duarte, his department confirmed on Facebook.
Law enforcement officers are at the scene, Manko said, adding families of patients arriving to the hospital are being guided to the parking lot of the building across the street.
Betsy Small was visiting her mother at the hospital around 10.30am when she started to hear “strange noises, a lot of activity, and then alarms going off”.
When she looked out the window, people were running, she said, and a woman announced something about a “lockdown” over the intercom system.
“I thought, oh something’s going on in here, but you never think it’s going to be a shooting, not in a hospital,” Small, 58, told CNN.
When the alarms went off, Small said she believes her hospital room door locked. She crouched down on the floor near the window for safety, her mother fast asleep in her hospital bed throughout all the commotion.
Within minutes, three or four police cars had arrived and officers were running into the building with shields and guns, she said she saw through the hospital room window.
For the next hour or so, Small watched through the hospital door window as nurses ran back and forth on her floor while yelling at one another.
At 11.41am, her daughter texted her that a shooter “had been taken out”.
As of 3pm, Small was not yet allowed to leave the building and said she has seen some of the nurses crying with one another in the hallway.
“I feel sad for everybody, honestly I do. It’s a sad situation,” Small said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has been “briefed on the tragic shooting” and is on his way to the scene, he said in a statement on X.
“The hospital is now secure and members of the (Pennsylvania State Police) and (Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency) are on the ground responding alongside our local and federal partners,” Shapiro wrote.
“Follow the direction of local authorities and stay clear of the area.”
Pennsylvania state Sen. Dawn Keefer and state Rep. Seth Grove said in a joint statement they are praying for “those who were injured and for the loved ones’ coping with an unthinkable act”.
“Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and all those affected by this senseless act of violence,” Keefer and Grove said, thanking first responders “for their swift actions in securing the scene, treating the wounded and ensuring the safety of our community.”
UPMC Memorial, a 104-bed hospital, opened in August 2019 and provides emergency medical care, cardiology and vascular services, chronic disease management, and surgical services. York is located in southern Pennsylvania.
CNN’s Kia Fatahi, Sharif Paget, Taylor Galgano and Natalie Barr contributed to this report.