PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A man in Berks County took his own life during an hours-long standoff with police that triggered a neighborhood lockdown.
Officers were called to his house on Hollywood Avenue in Mount Penn, a few miles east of Reading, for a wellness check Wednesday around 2:30 p.m.
Neighbors were worried because they hadn’t seen the man for a while and his mail was piling up.
“When they were checking the house, they could not find the individual,” Central Berks Police Chief Justin Johnson told NBC10. “They started to go downstairs, and there was a flash of light and fire that came up, and they immediately evacuated the house.”
Police were worried the man had explosives, so they put the neighborhood on lockdown.
Authorities were able to get back inside the house after about six hours. They found the man dead in the basement with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
There were several guns in the home, but no bombs or explosives.
