75 Pittsburgh officers on leave after hourslong shootout and standoff during eviction attempt
www.nbcnews.com
The suspect, William Hardison Sr., shot at deputies trying to serve an eviction notice, resulting in a standoff that lasted about 6½ hours.

    Details are still scant, but…

“I mean, he had a lot of ammunition in that house, and certainly … all of us were strapped, you know, with ammunition, and we were calling for additional ammunition,” Kraus said. “Like I said, we tried to give him every opportunity to come out.”

    …I’ll go way out on a limb and suggest that this could’ve been handled better.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    11349·
    10 months ago

    Does anyone else see that people having enough ammunition at home to keep up over six hours of gun fire is the real problem here?

      • gamer@lemm.ee
        145·
        10 months ago

        James Madison? Who the fuck is that? The second amendment is a God given right.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
          22·
          10 months ago

          Don’t be ridiculous, General Grant sniped God with a M1 Garand at the landing on Lexington Beach.

          Human rights are demanded and earned by humans, with guns.

      • Saneless@sh.itjust.works
        63·
        10 months ago

        My problem is that some greedy guy told cops to solve his dangerous problem for him at their own risk

        • SneakyThunder@sh.itjust.works
          62·
          10 months ago

          I mean, cops get paid with his money through taxation. What’s the problem of asking them to do what they’re paid for?

          • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
            6·
            10 months ago

            we’ve established multiple times that the police have no obligation to do what they’re paid for. it therefore follows that when they do choose to enforce the law it’s because they like that particular law or dislike the person they’re enforcing it against.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
      4728·
      10 months ago

      Guy doesn’t have enough money for rent

      Guy owns enough guns and ammunition to keep the police in standoff for 6½ hours

      …

      But housing price was the issue? 🤔

      • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
        214·
        10 months ago

        How long was he collecting ammunition? Did he buy a box on payday once in a while for a few years, or did he go out to Walmart and buy everything he used?

        Everyone seems to assume that this guy found out he’d be evicted and he immediately went and bought a rifle and 20,000 rounds of ammunition that evening. Bullets don’t go bad, he probably bought them over a few years.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
          68·
          10 months ago

          If instead of buying guns with your paycheck for years, you plopped it in an index fund, perhaps rent wouldn’t seem so out of reach.

          Edit: if you click the links within the articles and keep going, you find out he got evicted because he’s a SovCit who refused payments and wanted to fight the gov

          Sources said Hardison believed he was a sovereign citizen, meaning he thought he was exempt from the law.

          A Channel 11 News photographer discovered a video of Hardison during a prior interaction with police in 2019. In the video, you can see a Moorish flag, which is flown by Moorish sovereign citizens.

          Hardison had a criminal history dating back to at least 2000.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
              11·
              10 months ago

              Yeah I travel a lot for work and 3 news articles is not what I would call “heavy reading”

              Perhaps you’d be less busy if you weren’t working retail at a gun store.

        • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
          68·
          10 months ago

          Not sure that’s much better. I’ve accumulated 15,000 rounds of ammo that I’ve not used but I need more… how about 20,000 rounds??

          Someone accumulating that amount of ammo “just in case” has probably got some other issues.

          • tacosplease@lemmy.world
            64·
            10 months ago

            Lots of people have lots of bullets. Not saying they aren’t crazy, but if they are then there’s a fuck ton of heavily armed crazy people… Ok yeah actually that checks out.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
          47·
          10 months ago

          So? If you can’t pay your rent and face eviction you sell that shit, you don’t start shooting people doing their fucking job.

          Gun nuts are the first to speak about individual responsibility but when it’s their turn to face their responsibilities you can be sure of one thing, they ain’t facing them without a fight!

          • TechnoBabble@lemm.eeEnglish
            5·
            10 months ago

            This guy was a sovereign citizen, so the worst of the worst kind of crazy.

            Didn’t see that mentioned elsewhere in the thread, and it’s a big fucking detail to leave out.

      • iN8sWoRLd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        171·
        10 months ago

        Here’s what I read - I do not have the source but it was on a local Pittsburgh news site IIRC. He wasn’t paying rent. House was his deceased brother’s house which he bought in 1998 - not sure if shooter had inherited it or not, but there was something in excess of 15K owed for back taxes on it. An LLC paid the taxes on it and BOOM its their house - he filed paperwork with the state that they were scammers and he was contesting what he saw as an someone stealing his house. The LLC filed to have him evicted. Ultimately he made a bad decision to use a weapon and not a lawyer but he was ex-military and may have seen this as the last straw.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
          9·
          10 months ago

          He was a SovCit.

          Court records show the house was owned by Hardison’s brother Joseph, who died in March 2021. It was deeded to their father, William Hardison Sr., who neglected to make mortgage payments. The house was foreclosed upon and sold in March to a limited liability corporation called 907 East Street.

          William Hardison Jr. was evicted from an apartment on the Northside last year for non-payment of rent. The attorney for 907 East Street says he began squatting in the Board Street home in April, and the LLC petitioned for his eviction in May. William Jr. then filed papers in federal court accusing the new owners of fraud and trespassing, maintaining the house was his and refusing to leave – despite a judge’s order to do so.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
        7·
        10 months ago

        I think guns and bullets are a lot cheaper than you think they are. You can get a gun and a thousand bullets for under $500 last I checked.

      • randon31415@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        Quick google search: Average rent in Pittsburgh: $1,531. Cost per bullet: $0.08 to $3 per shot depending on size. Number of bullets shot: Well, lets assume 30/minute, as that is what I found on google as the fastest you can shoot an non-automatic (I don’t know what kind of gun he used or if he was perpetually shooting, this is just for math). So the cost of doing 30 shot/minute for 6.5 hours would be from $936 to $35,100. More for semi-automatic, less for shooting less.

        So… probably shot a month’s rent worth of bullets in those 6.5 hours. Others could get you closer, google isn’t what it use to be.

      • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        10 months ago

        I read it wasn’t a rent dispute but that someone bought the property because he wasn’t paying taxes. Searchig this thread for a source, though.

    • Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world
      2018·
      10 months ago

      No, it isn’t a problem. Just because a car collector has 100 cars and commits a crime with one of them doesn’t make everyone else who enjoys collecting cars a criminal.

      • Clent@lemmy.world
        52·
        10 months ago

        How can you be so dense that you’re take away is arm up!

        Didn’t help this guy, didn’t help the guy in Utah, won’t help you.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
            25·
            10 months ago

            No you’re a psychopath and as a person who has lived through some very hard times, I don’t believe you when you say you have and I won’t believe you when you respond with some story about how you have.

            This is crazy person shit.