2 female victims unharmed after South Jersey UPS hostage situation

Updated: 2:32 p.m.

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An armed man entered a UPS processing facility Monday morning, took two women hostage as other employees ran for safety, and was shot, wounded and captured, officials said.

The man was taken into custody. Neither woman suffered injuries. All other employees got out of the building safely, Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore said.

The gunman, who wasn’t identified by authorities, held two women hostage Monday morning in a barricaded room at the UPS Mail Innovations facility on Birch Creek Road in Logan Township, Fiore said, where police responded earlier Monday to reports of an active shooter situation.

Fiore said the two women work at the UPS facility and were both on a shift when the man entered the building around 9:30 a.m. Hostage negotiators began talking to the suspect by phone as he held the women barricaded in a room.

Fiore says there was apparently a prior relationship between the gunman and one of the women he took hostage.

Shortly before noon, as Fiore was updating reporters on the situation, a short burst of gunfire was heard from the area. He did not say how many shots police fired, or whether the suspect fired any shots.

Allen Anthony Dowling, an employee at the facility, about 20 miles south of Philadelphia, told The Associated Press earlier that he heard a fellow worker say someone had a gun. Dowling says he then heard what he thought was a gunshot and began to run along with other employees.

All other employees besides the two hostages got out of the building safely. Some of the employees were taken to a nearby hotel.

A UPS spokesman said the supply chain facility does not deliver packages or have a role in that process. According to the UPS Mail Innovations website, it “handles the pick-up, processing, and sorting of its customers’ outbound mail pieces and applies postage to the mail pieces before final delivery by postal authorities.”

WHYY reporters Katie Colaneri, Tom MacDonald, Aaron Moselle, and Avi Wolfman-Arent, and The Associated Press contributed reporting.

This developing story will be updated.