Source pennlive.com
A gunfight between a Harrisburg man and a police officer Wednesday morning erupted in the middle of a busy intersection stunning drivers and prompting bystanders to duck for cover.
Police accused Jacob Bruce Bucher III, 38, of putting “everyone in the area in danger of being shot with his firearm,” police wrote in court records filed Wednesday night against him. They charged him with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering the public and possession of a gun while prohibited.
Bucher was shot in the torso during the shootout at Cameron and Maclay streets around lunchtime Wednesday and remained in a hospital under guard Thursday. No one else was injured. The police officer “took cover” behind a traffic light pole at one point during the shooting, according to court documents.
An affidavit of probable cause filed by Harrisburg police gave this account:
A Harrisburg officer pulled over a silver minivan on Wednesday at 12:16 p.m. after seeing a suspect from an earlier shooting get into the vehicle at North second and Maclay Street.
The van and the police officer stopped at the intersection of Cameron and Maclay Street, with the van in the far-right turn lane, when police said Bucher stepped out of the minivan and began to walk away.
The officer told him to stop but Bucher ignored him and continued to walk away. Bucher, then pulled out a revolver and fired multiple shots at the police officer.
The police officer knelt down and fired back as Butcher continued to walk eastbound across the intersection while firing back at the officer. As this was happening, a video of the incident shows other drivers stopped at the intersection, and approaching the intersection.
One of the officer’s bullets hit Bucher and he continued to walk east on Arsenal Boulevard while ignoring the police officer’s commands being yelled across the intersection. Other officers arrived, including one in an unmarked vehicle, who followed Bucher and pulled onto the median behind him, as he fired his gun again and other officers ran toward Bucher.
That’s when Bucher tossed an Iver Johnson five-shot revolver containing five empty cartridges onto the street, police said.
The officer from the unmarked vehicle fired a stun gun at the wounded Bucher, as other officers swarmed him. Police wrote in court records that Bucher “resisted arrest,” the the documents did not specify Bucher’s actions.
District Attorney Fran Chardo said the traffic stop occurred after several reports of a man matching Bucher’s description waving a gun and firing it.
Bucher — who listed his most recent address as an apartment in the 1700 block of Green Street — has a criminal history in multiple Pennsylvania counties, including several instances where he resisted arrest and fled officers.
In 2016, he was arrested in Harrisburg by a state trooper at a vigil held for the victims of a mass shooting in Florida. He was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and drug possession.
He was arrested in 2018 and charged with criminal mischief, simple assault, resisting arrest, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, disorderly conduct, and public drunkenness after he threw objects toward police officers in the lobby of a Cumberland County motel.
Also in 2018, Bucher was arrested in Centre County for trying to fight with police officers in the lobby of a hotel after being involved in a domestic dispute.
More recently, police charged him in 2023 with fleeing/eluding and resisting arrest when he refused to pull over for nearly two miles.
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