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Suspect dead after standoff in Pittsburgh as police served eviction

Police said they were attempting to serve an eviction notice when someone inside of a home opened fire on officers.
Posted at 1:05 PM, Aug 23, 2023

At least one person was left dead after a standoff on Wednesday in a Pittsburgh neighborhood after a suspect inside of a property in the Garfield section of the city opened fire on officers, police said. 

Police did not immediately confirm the exact cause of death of the suspect. 

The standoff began after officers arrived at a home to serve an eviction notice at around 11 a.m. Eastern. Pittsburgh authorities said the person was pronounced dead hours later just after 5 p.m. Eastern. 

Police said the shooter was offered hours to surrender peacefully. 

Police said drones used in the operation were shot down during at least four separate attempts to deploy them.

Police called the standoff an "extremely active situation, with shots continuing to be fired" over the course of several hours on Wednesday. 

Pittsburgh Public Safety posted updates on X, formerly known as Twitter, beginning at around 11:30 a.m. 

In videos posted on social media, shots appeared to be heard coming from a home.

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Residents in nearby homes were told to shelter in place and to call 911 if they needed officers to come to their homes to remove them and relocate them to a safer area. 

Allegheny County Sheriff Kevin Kraus said when officers first made contact with someone inside of the residence at the door, they came under gunfire. 

Kraus said offers "began to take cover" and "return fire." 

He called it a "pretty significant gunbattle."

One of the officers who was reportedly shot, later was determined to have sustained a superficial head injury caused after he "dove" over a partition in order to take cover, police said. 

Police said they didn't have any prior information indicating that the person in the residence was a danger to others, or that the person was armed, the Associated Press reported later on Wednesday. 

Kraus said no officers were seriously injured, and said a SWAT team later arrived to take over. 

The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local police and the city SWAT team in the operation.