Ashanti Hendricks, 22, was identified as the suspect in the officer-involved Wisconsin Children’s Hospital shooting near Milwaukee.
Police shot and arrested Hendricks who was visiting a baby at the Newborn Progressive Care Unit on the hospital.
Officials were pursuing him to serve out a warrant but JSOnline.com reported that a woman claimed that a man was “going to shoot my baby” before the hospital was placed on lockdown for around two hours.
When officers told him they were going to arrest him, he was seen holding a baby. He then put the child down and ran.
Hendricks was reportedly shot in the wrist after he threatened officers with a gun, officials said.
Police received a tip about a wanted suspect at around 11:11 a.m., but the suspect was confirmed to be in the hospital until around an hour later.
There were no other injuries.
Sheboygan resident Chad Starkey, 29, said he was on the seventh floor and down the hall from his son’s room when he heard an announcement over the loud speaker that there was someone on the floor with a gun and that staff and visitors should hide and barricade themselves.
“My first thought was to protect my son,” Starkey said. He, his wife and a few nurses hid in a small closet for about 30 minutes. The whole time, he said, he worried someone might hurt his son.
“This is a disgrace. This hospital has to have some kind of security. If one person can get in with a gun, then anyone can,” Starkey said.
Irma Blazek, an interpreter, was in the cafe on the first floor of the hospital when she heard a code for an active shooter over the loudspeaker. Blazek said she and 10 to 15 other people hid in a stairwell for over an hour.
“It was just bizarre,” Blazek said. “This is the last place you would think something g like this would happen.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
