YORK, Pa. (AP) — A police officer killed while responding to a Pennsylvania hospital siege was struck by a shotgun blast fired by another officer that also hit the attacker as he held a hospital worker hostage with a gun to her head, a prosecutor disclosed Wednesday.
The attacker and West York Patrolman Andrew W. Duarte were killed in the gunfire at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York on Feb. 22, while several other officers and hospital employees were injured.
The disclosure that Duarte was killed by shots from fellow police came as York County District Attorney Tim Barker announced the findings of his investigation and pinned blame for Duarte's death on the attacker.
That man, Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49, was shot as he was attempting to leave the intensive care unit with a zip-tied hospital employee and a gun already emptied of bullets. It was then, Barker said, that officers unleashed a barrage of gunfire.
He said the responding officers, waiting just outside the ICU's doors, fired 22 times, striking Archangel-Ortiz at least 15 times. The zip-tied hospital employee wasn't hit, but an officer's shotgun blast that hit Archangel-Ortiz also felled Duarte and wounded a second officer, Barker said.
Barker called the officers heroes who risked their lives for the hostages while not knowing the attacker's weapon was already emptied of bullets. He called their actions “100% justified and legally appropriate.”
“I looked at every moment of video and I saw on every person’s face that willingness to walk into, to run into the path of gunfire and potential death. They were willing to lay down their lives for every single person at that hospital,” Barker said.
Hundreds of officers attended Duarte's funeral in February, remembering him as a dedicated public servant who died a hero.
Archangel-Ortiz “unleashed a torrent of evil” and directly caused Duarte’s death during a siege in which he threatened and zip-tied several hospital employees and fired his gun at several, hitting one in the leg, Barker said.
The attack occurred after Archangel-Ortiz learned the woman he lived with had died following a week of treatment at the hospital, Barker said, adding the gun used in the attack was stolen in 2017.
He said Archangel-Ortiz appeared to become nauseous when a doctor told him the woman had been moved to the hospital morgue.
Moments later, he displayed the gun and announced, “This is what we're going to talk about,” according to Barker. Archangel-Ortiz fired on the doctor, grazing his arm and piercing a jacket. The doctor texted colleagues about the danger and fled from the ICU.
What ensued was a chaotic series of events in which Archangel-Ortiz threatened hospital employees and made one hospital worker zip tie others. One worker he shot in the leg escaped and locked herself in a bathroom.
Barker said Archangel-Ortiz called his brother during the siege, telling him, “This is how I'm going out.”
At one point, Archangel-Ortiz fired his 9mm handgun three times at an officer who tried to enter the ICU, missing all three times, Barker said. At another, he pointed it at a hospital employee who had broken out of her zip-ties and fired three times, only to hear a clicking noise because the gun was already empty, he said.
Police tried to talk to Archangel-Ortiz, Barker said, as they also organized teams at the intensive care unit doors and formulated a plan to enter the ICU unit behind a tactical shield.
That's when Archangel-Ortiz tried to leave the ICU with a zip-tied employee, telling her to “take him to where the most people are,” Barker said.
Barker said there was no warning signs Archangel-Ortiz would become violent and they had no details why he did what he did, noting, “sometimes there is no ‘why’” and that Archangel-Ortiz had been “fully prepared to take hostages and kill people.”
Some of the nurses who survived have shared their accounts on social media, disclosing injuries and treatment and how the attack has haunted the survivors. The attack highlighted rising violence against U.S. health care workers and the challenges of protecting them.
Nurse Tosha Trostle said Archangel-Ortiz held her at gunpoint, arms zip-tied behind her back, as they walked through a doorway and encountered a phalanx of officers.
She said she begged Archangel-Ortiz to let her go and that he pushed the gun against her neck and spine. She heard gunshots and fell to the floor under his body.
“The officers told me to run. I struggled to get out from under him,” Trostle wrote. “I remember his limp cold hand against my face as I pushed away with my feet.”
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Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
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