WIND GAP, Pa. - A 65-year-old Easton man died in an armed confrontation with police that occurred after a vehicle pursuit that ended in this Slate Belt borough, Pennsylvania State Police said.
The shooting occurred about 7:30 p.m. Saturday at North Broadway and Tribe Lane in Wind Gap after the vehicle drove over spikes placed on the road by authorities, Northampton County District Attorney Stephen Baratta said.
The armed man was wounded by police gunfire then turned his own gun on himself, fatally shooting himself in the head, Baratta said.
Easton police initially had been called to the man's home in the city for a welfare check on a reportedly suicidal person, Baratta said.
When police arrived the man was gone but they issued a bulletin for others to be on the lookout for him, he said.
Authorities did not release the man's identity.
The armed confrontation ensued after the man got out of the disabled vehicle in a parking lot near the Appalachian Trail, according to the district attorney.
"He had a weapon when he got out of the car," Baratta said. "He was told to drop the weapon, to disarm. He didn’t comply. I believe the confrontation was caught on body cam but I haven’t seen it."
The man was wounded in the hip by a Forks Township police officer, Baratta said. The district attorney said he believed no other officers fired shots.
No police officers were injured, state police said.
Officers provided medical care to the man and he was taken by ambulance to St. Luke's Anderson campus, where he was pronounced dead, state police said.
The incident began with Forks Township police, and other departments, in pursuit of a 2016 Kia driven by the victim, state police said.
Baratta said police spotted the car on Sullivan Trail in Forks Township and followed it north into the Slate Belt.
"It was a low-speed pursuit," the district attorney said. "He wasn’t driving fast. It wasn’t dangerous. The public wasn’t at risk. They were driving the speed limit or less."
The investigation is being led by Pennsylvania State Police and the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office.
