A Pennsylvania man who died in a shootout with police while taking hostages in a hospital ICU had apparently lost a loved one there.
Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49, shot five people and killed a police officer Saturday morning after he stormed the ICU armed with a handgun and zip ties. A physician assistant at the hospital later said that he had had multiple dealings with Archangel-Ortiz before the incident.
"I was there when we delivered the worst news imaginable to him—that his loved one was gone," Lester Mendoza wrote on Facebook. "I saw his devastation firsthand. In that moment, I truly did not see a monster. He was simply broken."
Mendoza works in pulmonary care. Much of the Facebook post decries the current state of the nation's healthcare system, claiming that it is "broken."
"We are expected to provide limitless care that we would expect to provide our own family, with limited resources. We are asked to carry the weight of life and death, grief and loss, with little support," Mendoza wrote. "It fails nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers by pushing us past our limits, forcing us to work understaffed and overworked shifts while still expecting us to provide compassionate, high-quality care."
The Saturday incident unfolded over the course of about 45 minutes. Archangel-Ortiz entered the ICU and shot a nurse and custodian, while a doctor was grazed by a bullet. He then began taking hostages, York County District Attorney Tim Barker recounted.
When police created a formation to attempt to breach the ICU, Archangel-Ortiz put a gun to a staff member's head and told police to back off, which they did. Although officers later attempted to negotiate with Archangel-Ortiz when he again emerged in the hallway with his gun to the head of a zip tied hospital staff member, a firefight erupted.
Archangel-Ortiz and West York Borough Police Officer Andrew Duarte were killed in the shootout, Barker said.
Mendoza said in another passage of the post that he had shared his own story of personal loss with Archangel-Ortiz, and he thought he had connected with him.
"I would have never imagined or expected him to do something like this. But grief, exhaustion, isolation, and a lack of mental health and social support services create cracks that people fall through. And when they do, the consequences can be catastrophic," Mendoza stated.
Mendoza also thanked law enforcement and Officer Duarte for their work, saying: "From the bottom of my heart, you will never be forgotten, and neither will the people who put their lives on the line on a daily basis."
Originally published in The Latin Times
