Accused Philadelphia gunman taken into custody after shooting 6 cops, barricading self in building

The man who allegedly shot six Philadelphia police officers and holed up inside a building for hours was taken into custody early Thursday morning, authorities said.

Maurice Hill, 34, was identified as the suspect by law enforcement. Hill surrendered peacefully to police, and was seen exiting the building with his hands raised just after midnight.

The standoff began around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday as officers went to a home in a north Philadelphia neighborhood of brick and stone rowhomes to serve a narcotics warrant in an operation “that went awry almost immediately,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said.

One woman said she heard over 100 gunshots when the incident first began and saw people running for their lives.

“I heard so many gunshots… I’m scared,” she told ABC Philadelphia station WPVI.

Many officers “had to escape through windows and doors to get (away) from a barrage of bullets,” Ross said.

The six officers who were struck by gunfire have been released from hospitals, police said.

Two other officers were trapped inside the house for about five hours after the shooting broke out but were freed by a SWAT team well after darkness fell on the residential neighborhood. Three people that officers had taken into custody in the house before the shooting started were also safely evacuated, police said.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today,” Ross said.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said he was thankful that officers’ injuries weren’t life-threatening.

“I’m a little angry about someone having all that weaponry and all that firepower,” Kenney said.

He called for more gun control, saying the city’s police officers need help keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals.

“It’s just something that, we need to do something about it,” Kenney said at a press conference. “And if the state and federal government don’t want to stand up to the NRA and some other folks, then let us, let us police ourselves. But they preempt us on all kinds of gun control legislation.”

“Our officers deserve to be protected and don’t deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets,” Kenney said.

“It’s disgusting and we got to do something about it and we need to do something about it quickly,” he said.