Parts of Government Plaza in Mobile, Alabama were on lockdown amid a possible suicide intervention outside a government building involving an armed man.
Chief Paul Prine of the Mobile Police Department said officers were in communications with a man in a car who had pointed a gun at his own head.
They believed that he had been shot, but don’t know where. A cell phone was delivered to the man via a robot.
The man had not made any threats to police officers or any kind of demands, according to WKRG.
Chief Prine said communications had been difficult as the man hadn’t acted rationally.
The standoff started when police approached the man as he was suffering from a gunshot wound and the man aimed his firearm at the officers.
SWAT, Mobile Police, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, and Mobile Fire-Rescue are all present at the plaza.
Police called the situation “contained” and said that it was not an active shooter situation.
Chief Prine said the situation was “fluid” and that the man was having an “episode” that is either “mental or drug-induced”.
The chief said the man had been identified and that family members had been contacted.
Chief Prine told reporters that the man wasn’t a threat to the public and that “time is on our side”, adding that the authorities were willing to “wait it out”.
Mobile police Cpl Katrina Frazier told local media that the armed man was parked in a vehicle outside Government Plaza at 9.45am when officers walked towards him to see if he needed help.
She said that the man aimed the gun at his own head at this point.
“Officers backed away from the scene and we called in the SWAT teams and a negotiator,” she added, according to al.com.
She said it was “unknown at this time if she shot himself or if someone else shot him”.
“We do know this is not an active shooter scene. We are working diligently to talk to this (gunman) to find out what is going on and how we can resolve this quickly,” Cpl Fraizer said.
“The individual did produce a gun,” she said. “For the safety of ourselves and others, we are working to get him removed from the vehicle safely.”
Hours into the standoff, the man shot through the back window of his vehicle before stepping out of the car while holding the gun to his head.
