Buffalo News
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A barrage of gunfire ended a standoff in Allentown this afternoon with a gunman who police say shot a Buffalo police officer in the face as he tried to defuse a hostage situation.
The gunman, who police declined to identify at a late-afternoon news conference, was later found dead inside a Trinity Place apartment where he barricaded himself for nearly four hours. Police brass wouldn’t say whether his death resulted from a self-inflicted wound or from an exchange of gunfire with officers.
The injured police officer, John Garcia, 47, a 15-year veteran of the force and detective with the Hostage Management Team, was shot in the face and upper shoulder with buckshot, police said. He was taken to the Erie County Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
The stand-off began at 10:45 a.m. when police were called to 57 Trinity Place near South Elmwood Avenue for a “welfare check” of a possible suicidal individual, sources said, and ended with the gunfire at 2:45 p.m.
Witnesses heard a number of shots fired, followed by two distinctive blasts of a flash-bang device used by police to clear a building. Two clouds of blue smoke were seen drifting over the roof tops.
Shortly before 3 p.m., after police cleared the building, emergency technicians wheeled two gurneys into the house. A short time later, they were brought out empty.
Dennis J. Richards, Buffalo’s chief of detectives, homicide detectives and evidence technicians then entered the carriage house at the rear of 57 Trinity.
Garcia, who lives in Amherst, joined the Police Department in 1994. He is a detective, assigned to D District.
Hostage negotiators were assisted by a relative of the suspect and a neighbor. Medical personnel were on alert at the scene.
Police said they were first called to the address at 10:45 a.m. At noon, the police SWAT team and Hostage Management Team came to the scene. Neighbors heard gunfire a half hour later.
“I heard shots, I didn’t know what they were, but when I saw cops pulling up, I knew what it was. I thought it was a gang war at first,” said Bruce Harris, a resident of the 300 block of South Elmwood Avenue. “I heard people screaming, and more gunshots.”
A half hour earlier, residents in the neighborhood observed police cars from the Central District at South Elmwood and Trinity. The police blocked off Trinity, which runs from Delaware Avenue to Virginia Street.
“I was told by the cops there was a hostage situation. I saw a few people crying, and it looked like someone was holding a baby,” said Lou Fumerelle, whose son works nearby. “That’s all the cops would say, a hostage situation.”
His son, attorney Anthony Fumerelle, also heard the shots at about 12:30 p.m. from his law offices at 346 Tupper St.
“I was in my office, and heard a couple shots, then some sharp reports coming back. It sounded like they were from a rifle,” he said.
Interim Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda and Mayor Byron W. Brown both visited Garcia at the hospital.
Police spokesman Michael J. DeGeorge said “the initial inclination was it is non-life threatening injuries.”
Copyright 2010 Buffalo News