The week preceding that Saturday morning in February, Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz’s girlfriend – described as his “significant other” – had been admitted to UMPC Memorial’s intensive care unit with an undisclosed and eventually terminal malady.
Archangel-Ortiz was by her side almost constantly, ICU staff later told investigators. One told police later that he seemed to be “in disbelief,” and that he was “sad” and “solemn,” and even “polite,” York County District Attorney Tim Barker reported. He was described as “nice, almost too nice,” Barker said.
He thanked the hospital staff for caring for his loved one.
Archangel-Ortiz was not at the hospital when his significant other took a turn for the worse and it appeared her death was imminent, Barker said. Hospital staff tried calling him, but he didn’t answer his phone. When he did get to the hospital later, an ICU staffer had to inform him that his girlfriend had passed away and her body was now in the morgue.
There was nothing to indicate that just a few days later, on that Saturday morning, Feb. 22, Archangel-Ortiz would return to the ICU, armed with a stolen handgun and zip ties, an encounter that would end with two hospital staffers and three police officers wounded and 30-year-old West York Police Officer Andrew Duarte mortally wounded, the result of what’s colloquially referred to as “friendly fire.”
Archangel-Ortiz, 49, would not survive either, shot between 15 and 20 times – his head, neck and torso so riddled with bullets that it was difficult to tell.
‘Sometimes there is no why’
Barker, a 27-year veteran of the district attorney’s office, held a news conference Wednesday to announce the results of the more than two-month-long investigation into the hostage situation and shooting at the West Manchester Township hospital, perched atop a hill on a bucolic, suburban campus.
Barker, seemingly choking up at times, described in as much detail as he believed he was permitted to do under the law and within the strictures of decorum, the events that led to the death of Duarte and Archangel-Ortiz.
Barker made it clear that Archangel-Ortiz was the author of this tragedy. “He, on his own, entered UPMC fully prepared to take hostages and kill people,” Barker said.
Why he did it, Barker said, remains a mystery. Had Archangel-Ortiz lived, the prosecutor said, he would have faced charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder – the murder charge related to Duarte’s death. Even though the suspect did not fire the fatal shot, Barker said, he directly caused it through his actions.
It would have been what Barker described as “a no-motive prosecution” – the law doesn’t require prosecutors to prove motive.
“When you ask why, what would drive him to do this, sometimes there is no why,” Barker said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon. All we know, Barker said, is Archangel-Ortiz, “unleashed a torrent of evil at UPMC.”
Investigators looked into Archangel-Ortiz’s background and found nothing that would indicate he would do something like this.
“There were no signs that he would perform this act of mass violence,” Barker said.
That was, until he entered UPMC that Saturday morning.
“He has a gun. Run.”
Archangel-Ortiz’s last day on earth began when he took an Uber to the Walmart Supercenter in West Manchester Township. There, at 8:33 a.m., according to surveillance video, he bought zip ties, a knife, spray paint and lemonade.
His Uber driver told investigators that he didn’t notice anything strange about Archangel-Ortiz. The driver also didn’t think there was anything amiss when he dropped his passenger off at UPMC at 10:35 a.m.
Surveillance video at the hospital showed he was wearing black pants, a black jacket and a baseball cap. He carried a gray backpack. Inside the backpack was a 9mm Taurus handgun. The semiautomatic weapon had previously been reported as stolen in Manor Township in Lancaster County in 2017, Barker said. Archangel-Ortiz was prohibited by law to possess the weapon, his Second Amendment rights rescinded under the law by a robbery conviction in the 1990s, according to Barker.
He went to the hospital’s ICU on the second floor and used the phone at the entrance to call the desk to ask to enter. The supervising doctor met him at the door and escorted him to a room to talk to him. As they talked about his girlfriend’s passing, Archangel-Ortiz complained of nausea and bolted from the room, Barker said.
When the doctor saw Archangel-Ortiz again, Barker said, the suspect was brandishing his silver handgun, telling the doctor, “This is what we’re going to talk about.”
The doctor texted his staff, “He has a gun. Run.”
Archangel-Ortiz fired two shots at the doctor, Barker said. One round pierced the doctor’s jacket and didn’t strike him. Another grazed his arm.
The doctor fled, Barker said. Archangel-Ortiz then grabbed a staffer who was hiding underneath a desk and gave her a bag of zip ties, instructing her to zip-tie the other staffers.
The first call to 911 was placed at 10:43 a.m.
Another hospital worker, hearing the shots, tried to the enter the ward and Archangel-Ortiz took a shot at him, telling him that if he tried to come in, “I’m going to go room to room and start shooting people.”
UPMC security officers then entered the ICU, Barker said. Archangel-Ortiz fired at them and told them that if anyone entered the room, he would kill the hostages. The UPMC officers retreated and waited for police to arrive.
Archangel-Ortiz shot one of his zip-tied hostages in the leg as she lie on the floor, Barker said.
At 10:51 a.m., Duarte and another officer arrived at the hospital. Duarte was on duty in neighboring West York borough and responded to the call to assist West Manchester Township Police for what was dispatched as “an active shooter.”
Police from departments all over York County – including members of the Quick Response Team, a SWAT team composed of officers from different departments – gathered. Officers from all over the county responded. The response included state police troopers and wardens from the state Game Commission.
“This is how I’m going out.”
As police gathered outside the ICU – other officers fanned out and secured the hospital and established a perimeter – Archangel-Ortiz told a hospital staffer, “It’s 11:02. Tell them they have until 11:25 or there are going to be bodies.”
During the standoff, Barker said, Archangel-Ortiz called his brother and told him to clean out his apartment in West York and take his jewelry. He told his brother, “Tell everybody I love them. This is what I want. This is how I’m going out.”
The hospital staffer who had been shot in the leg saw an opportunity to get away and made her way to a bathroom in a patient’s room, locking herself inside, Barker said.
Police officers outside, after some discussion, decided to open the doors to assess the situation, Barker said. The first officer to enter would have a ballistic shield to provide cover for the others. When they opened the door, Barker said, Archangel-Ortiz yelled, “Back the f— up. Close the f—— door. Get the f— back.”
He held a hostage as a human shield and threatened to “blow her head off,” Barker said.
An officer tried to talk to Archangel-Ortiz, telling him, “We can work this out, man. Anything can be worked out.”
Having no clear line of sight to shoot Archangel-Ortiz, the officers retreated to the hallway, posting on either side of the door while discussing what to do next. The officers formed teams. Some stayed at the main entrance. Others covered another entrance. And those with medical training were assigned to stand by should that become necessary, Barker said.
At 11:11 a.m., one of the hostages was able to snap the zip ties binding her hands, Barker said. Archangel-Ortiz pointed his gun at her and pulled the trigger three times. Three times, the gun clicked. Its magazine was empty. Hospital staffers later told investigators that Archangel-Ortiz banged the gun against his hand, apparently believing it had jammed.
Three minutes later, Barker said, he grabbed a hostage by the neck, and holding his gun to her head, went to the ICU’s main door, Barker said. He pushed her through the door.
Officer fires shotgun at suspect
Police officers lining the hallway on both sides of the door backed up, Barker said. They took aim, looking for “a clear and present opportunity to strike the actor and not strike the hostage,” Barker said.
One officer, armed with a shotgun, had a shot and took it, Barker said. The bulk of the blast struck Archangel-Ortiz on his right shoulder and back.
A stray pellet struck an officer holding a ballistic shield on the other side of the door, wounding his right hand and arm, Barker said.
Two other pellets struck Duarte, who was standing diagonally behind the officer holding the shield, Barker said. One pellet struck him on his right side, under his protective vest. Another struck him on the left side, in the mesh of his vest, under his arm, and penetrated his chest, Barker said.
West York Police Chief Matt Millsaps prepares for a news conference on the investigation into the fatal shooting of Officer Andrew Duarte at UPMC Memorial Hospital Feb. 22, 2025.
Police opened fire, hitting Archangel-Ortiz between 15 and 20 times in his head, neck and torso, Barker said. “It was hard to be precise due to the nature of the injuries,” Barker said. Police later recovered 22 spent cartridges from the hallway, including a single spent shotgun shell, Barker said.
“The hostage was not struck once,” Barker said. The officers, he said, “would not have discharged their firearms if they thought they would strike the hostage. She was not struck.”
Another officer was wounded in the leg by pellets from the shotgun, Barker said.
A memorial photo of Andrew Duarte carried by his mother Nancy Duarte Matarese during the press conference.
Once the suspect was down, officers told the hostage to run and when she did, she stumbled and struck her head, causing what Barker described as a “serious injury” to her head.
Duarte retreated around a corner and told other officers that he had been hit, Barker said. He then returned to the ICU entrance and bent over to hold the hand of the officer who had been wounded.
Duarte then collapsed to the floor, Barker said. An officer with advanced emergency medical training tended to him. Other officers with medical training tended to the other wounded officers, applying tourniquets to stanch the flow of blood.
Later, Duarte was declared dead at WellSpan’s York Hospital.
Barker declined to identify the officer who fired the shot that killed Duarte. He also declined to describe the cause of his death as “friendly fire,” a term of art that he said carries no legal weight.
When a police officer picked up Archangel-Ortiz’s gun, Barker said, he cleared to it to make sure it was safe to handle.
It was empty, Barker said, something officers had no way of knowing when he appeared outside the ICU door, holding it to the hostage’s head.
A tragic case
Barker choked up when he spoke about police.
“These heroes,” he said, “showed what it means to lay down your life with sacrificial love for all of those you serve. They were willing to lay down their lives for every single person in that hospital.”
He said, “Thank God, thank Jesus Christ, these things don’t happen too frequently.”
The tragedy of this case has changed him, he said. “You can’t go back,” he said. “You have to be different. If we cannot at least give our love or support for one another, then who are we? Why are we here?”
Mom: “It’s hard to hear’
Duarte, Barker said, “persevered. He fought the good fight. He finished the race. He kept the faith. We are all better off to have had him for 30 years. He was with us.”
After Barker’s press conference, Duarte’s mother, Nancy Duarte Matarese, spoke to reporters. Tearing up as she spoke, she expressed her admiration for her son’s brothers and sisters in law enforcement and her gratitude that the investigation into his death has concluded.
The day before the press conference, Barker and investigators met with her and told her their findings.
“It’s hard to hear because it’s your child,” she said.
She thinks about what her son went through and wonders what it was like for him, to be shot and know that he was facing death. “I wish I could ask him what he felt in that moment,” she said. “But I can’t.”
She still struggles with her son’s death. She has saved one of her son’s shirts from his dresser. It still smells like him, she said.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Every day, it becomes much more real that Andrew is no longer on this earth. After he became a police officer, I prayed to the Lord that I wouldn’t have to walk this walk. This is the road I am now walking on.”
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: York County DA explains friendly fire death of Officer Andrew Duarte