At least six Philadelphia police officers were shot during a gun battle in Philadelphia's Nicetown-Tioga section and rushed to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, authorities say. Two officers and three others who were trapped inside the home with the shooter were safely evacuated several hours after the standoff began. The gunman remains armed inside the house.UPDATE 15/08/2019 12:03 am EDT: CBS3 reports the suspect shooter has been taken into custody
"We have gone from a hostage situation to a barricade," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said.
Ross said that the two officers and three others inside the home took fire during the incident.
"We are trying to get him to come out peacefully, but he is refusing to do so," Ross said.
All six officers wounded in the shooting have been released from the hospital. Another officer injured in a car crash on the way to the scene still remains hospitalized
Sources tell CBS3 the suspect was live-streaming some of the shootout while he barricaded himself inside the home.
A suspected gunman has been taken into custody after he allegedly shot six Philadelphia police officers in the city's Nicetown-Tioga section Wednesday. The suspect surrendered to police shortly after midnight, following more than a seven-hour-long standoff.The Philadelphia Inquirer has provided a tentative identification:
All six police officers were released from the hospital Wednesday night. A seventh officer, who was injured in a car crash while responding to the scene on the 3700 block of North 15th Street, remains in the hospital.
Two officers, who were trapped on the second floor of the residence, were safely evacuated, along with three hostages, while police say the gunman remained on the first floor.
Additionally, two women and two children were escorted by SWAT and Philadelphia Police from the scene. They told CBS3 that they were inside the home on the second floor at the time of the shootout and that police saved them.
Police sources identified him as Maurice Hill, 36 — a Philadelphia man with a lengthy history of gun convictions and of resisting attempts to bring him to justice.More on Maurice Hill's background from the Inquirer:
Just before he exited the residence, loud booms could be heard, apparently from police projectiles. He was then placed into an awaiting police van and taken to Temple University Hospital to be evaluated.
Public records show that he [Hill] has been arrested about a dozen times since turning 18, and convicted six times on charges that involved illegal possession of guns, drug dealing, and aggravated assault. He has been in and out of prison; the longest sentence handed him came in 2010, when a federal judge gave him a 55-month term.
And, his record would indicate, he does not like to go to prison. In 2008, he was convicted of escaping, fleeing from police, and resisting arrest. Along the way, he beat criminal charges on everything from kidnapping to attempted murder.
Hill also spent time in federal prison. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to federal firearms violations after he was caught with a Smith & Wesson .357 and later a Taurus PT .45 semiautomatic. His prior felony convictions should have barred him from owning those weapons. U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond sentenced him to four years and seven months in prison.
More recently, Hill was convicted of perjury in 2013 and sentenced to seven years of probation. He appeared before Common Pleas Court Judge Rayford Means for three different alleged violations of probation — at least two of them related to new cases, which he later beat.
In one of those cases, Philadelphia police arrested Hill in May 2014, after spotting him driving an unregistered scooter. But when officers tried to stop him, he raced down an alleyway against traffic on a one way street and then onto a sidewalk, sending pedestrians scattering, court records say. Hill crashed the scooter and then fled on foot but was apprehended. He was charged with driving without a license, recklessly endangering another person, and fleeing police, but later was acquitted on all counts.
Philadelphia police arrested Hill again in October 2014 on charges of drug possession and false imprisonment.
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