An elderly man was placed on a stretcher and taken into custody after he allegedly barricaded himself inside a Delaware County apartment complex and fired several shots at police.
Joseph Smith, 80, a resident of the Lansdowne Towers Apartment Complex on the 700 block of East Providence Road in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, called 911 around 7 p.m. Wednesday, police said.
Smith allegedly told the operator, "I have tons of guns and I plan on using them."
Around 50 police officers from Upper Darby, Yeadon and Clifton Heights as well as a SWAT team immediately responded to the area and established a perimeter. Smith allegedly fired nine to ten shots at the officers, though none of them were struck.
The standoff finally ended around 9:45 p.m. when officers managed to get inside the apartment.
"We lobbed three canisters of tear gas into the rear window where he was firing shots from," said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. "Then the SWAT team did a forced entry inside the apartment itself. He was in a second bedroom with a handgun."
Smith was apprehended and placed on a stretcher. When he was taken to the hospital for an evaluation, Smith was allegedly uncooperative and officials had to give him an injection to calm him down.
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No one else was injured in the ordeal.
Chitwood told NBC10 police recovered a small arsenal of weapons inside Smith's house, including a .22 rifle, handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Smith had lived at the apartment complex for at least a decade and recently lost his wife, according to investigators. Officials have not yet revealed Smith's motive behind the alleged shooting or the specific charges he now faces.
Police are currently waiting for a warrant to go through his apartment.
