A man living in the Blawnox Apartments is behind bars after being accused of pulling a gun on two Allegheny County Housing Authority employees who were performing a welfare check.
Mark Wayne McDaniel, 64, faces two aggravated assault charges stemming from the incident that brought a large police presence from about noon to 2 p.m. Monday to the apartment building at 701 Center Ave.
McDaniel was arraigned Monday afternoon before District Judge Matt Rudzki. Online court records indicate Rudzki denied bail, citing that no conditions could guarantee the safety of the public.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case, apartment residents reported they had not seen McDaniel in a week. The property manager and a maintenance employee went to the eighth floor of the apartment Monday for a welfare check, the complaint said.
No one answered the door, so the employees obtained the master key, according to the complaint. When the employees unlocked the door, they could only partially open it because something was blocking it from opening all the way, they said.
The employees said they identified themselves as county maintenance and attempted to make their way into the apartment. McDaniel came toward the employees with a black handgun pointed at them, the complaint said.
The employees ran down the hallway, hid in an alcove and reported McDaniel yelling, “Did you see who has been (in) my apartment?” the complaint said.
O’Hara police, which cover Blawnox, were dispatched to the apartment building at 11:28 p.m., according to the complaint. The North Hills Special Response Team, a SWAT unit, was called in to assist. “Following negotiations by the North Hills Special Response Team, the individual was safely taken into custody without incident,” the O’Hara police reported. No one was injured.
McDaniel is being held in the Allegheny County Jail.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 29 in Rudzki’s Sharpsburg courtroom.
