Capitol Hill had an antsy morning, as an armed man was killed while bunkered in his apartment, facing off against SPD. According to Detective Mark Jamieson, at 3 a.m. police responded to a shots fired call at the Marq apartment building on Denny and Bellevue. The call was made after a resident of the building encountered another resident who was holding a gun (apparently not in a threatening manner). That first resident called police about five minutes later, after hearing what sounded like gunshots.

Police arrived and knocked on the potential shooter's door. The man behind the door allegedly responded by threatening to shoot the officers. (It's unclear if he may also have said he booby-trapped the apartment; Detective Jamieson wouldn't give specifics, but SWAT took their sweet time getting into the apartment later.) The police backed off, and SWAT/Negotiators/Crisis Intervention were brought in. Negotiations went on through the morning, with the man coming out at one point yelling, gun in hand, then heading back in.

First-floor Marq resident Adri Verlaan said he woke up to the sound of iPhones and Pods brimming with texts warning him to get out of his apartment. Last night, he said, he'd heard blaring music from what he thought was the shooter's window, but otherwise he slept through the bulk of the standoff. Verlaan got out through the main entrance, carefully sticking to the sides of the building, staying out of the shooter's sight lines. "It's kinda eerie to see SWAT trucks outside your building," he later told me.

Police continued negotiations even after a shot was heard inside the building, but that ended when the man allegedly shot outside of the apartment, toward officers and civilians. Two SWAT members fired back, striking the shooter. The man was confirmed dead; no officers were hurt during the morning's events.

Detective Jamieson went on to say that the Crisis Intervention team (officers specially trained to deal with people with mental illness and/or on drugs) was aware that the man had a history of mental illness. SPD is conducting an officer-involved-shooting investigation.

I tried to capture some of this morning's more intense moments—the shooter's broken window, officers pacing impatiently, robots telling their toaster wives they loved them before tentatively facing death, but my camera phone blows, and this is what I got.

Sorry Guys.