Dozens of officers were placed on leave after firing 'thousands' of bullets in a 6-hour shootout in Pittsburgh

• A shootout Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, lasted over six hours.
• "Thousands" of shots were fired over the course of the incident, police said.

After a standoff between a gunman and law enforcement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania lasted over six hours, the gunman is dead, and dozens of officers have been placed on leave.

The chaotic scene unfolded Wednesday morning in Garfield, a neighborhood at the east end of Pittsburgh, around 11 a.m. when a man later identified by NBC News as William Hardison Sr. was served an eviction notice and pulled a weapon out, the Allegheny Sheriff's Department told CNN.

After hours of shooting and evacuation orders, the twelve Pittsburgh and federal departments involved in the incident announced that many of the officers involved in the shootout had been placed on leave.

Hardison Sr. was a father and veteran; his son, William Hardison Jr., said his father was a good man who was "spiraling," per WPXI. Another woman told CBS during the standoff that Hardison Sr. was a "teddy bear" and a "jokester," and wished police would allow her or Hardison's girlfriend to speak with him.

Residents were urged to evacuate the houses nearby when the shootout began, according to the Pittsburgh Public Safety Twitter account.

Per CBS, Pittsburgh police chief Larry Scirotto estimated "thousands" of shots were fired over the course of several hours, but did not have exact numbers.

By 5:08 p.m., according to Tweets from the PPS account, the man was pronounced dead.

Dozens of officers were placed on leave after the event for shooting their weapons during the stand-off, according to ABC-affiliated station WTAE. Scirotto said that officers will be given an evaluation to ensure they are ready to return to work, per CBS. A spokesperson for the Allegheny Sheriff's Department, Mike Manko, said to Insider in an email that officers would undergo a psychiatric evaluation before being cleared for work.

In police best practices, it is typical for officers who are the subject of an investigation to be placed on administrative leave pending the investigation's results, according to the US Department of Justice.

Manko confirmed to Insider they had 16 deputies on administrative leave, and the Allegheny County Police said they had 12 deputies on administrative leave. Both agencies declined to make other comments, citing the Pennsylvania State Police leading the investigation.

According to NBC, 47 officers from the Pittsburgh Police Department, who did not respond to Insider's request for comment, are also on leave for the next three to five days.

Allegheny County Police lists over 210 officers on their website, and the 2023 operating budget for the city of Pittsburgh said the department had 900 uniformed officers.

The Pennsylvania State Police also declined to comment in response to Insider's requests.