Shooting response
Police say suspect flees house before SWAT team can enter it.
After an hours-long standoff along First Street, police said an armed man they believed had barricaded himself inside a home had actually escaped before police arrived at the residence Saturday morning, Albany Police spokesman Officer Steve Smith said.
The drama started after city police received three reports of shots being fired at about 10 a.m. and they converged on the scene along the 100 block of First Street, between Lark and North Swan streets.
At least one witness told police a suspect fired several shots at a group of people down the street, then ran into a home, Smith said.
About a dozen marked and unmarked police vehicles — including a SWAT van — gathered along the residential road, which was closed off to the public for most of the morning and afternoon.
Police surrounded the house and repeatedly called out on a loud speaker for the suspect to give himself up.
After no one came out, a heavily armed police SWAT team entered the First Street home at around 1:30 p.m., and searched for nearly an hour.
No one was found inside, Smith said. “Prior to our arrival, sometimes it just takes seconds. The suspect ran outside the house, likely out the back door,” he said.
Smith said police are confident it was an “isolated” incident, and the public isn’t immediately in danger.
Smith wouldn’t say if police had recovered shell casings from the shooting, what kind of gun was used or if the suspect lived at the house he ran into.
He said police will continue conducting a search warrant of the home, as well as investigate who the suspect is and what led up to the gunfire.
Smith said the suspect running into a home “kind of changes the game for us,” and made the heavy police presence necessary.
“You need to look at the circumstances.” Smith said. “We potentially had a suspect inside of a house that was armed, so we want to bring out our emergency service team who are trained to deal with these types of situations.”