Update: Police standoff ends in arrest after gunfire on Eighth

Update, 4:50 p.m. A Berkeley man has been taken into custody on suspicion of firing a gun into his neighbor's apartment on Monday morning, authorities report.

The incident, which prompted an hours-long standoff, culminated in the man's arrest shortly after 3 p.m., Berkeley police said.

BPD got a call just after 10 a.m. about a bullet that had gone through the roof of a tenant's apartment while they were home inside their building in the 2400 block of Eighth Street.

The resident escaped injury but, when officers arrived, they were unable to make contact with the person believed to have fired the gun, police said.

Officers were ultimately able to track down a phone number for the suspect who agreed to be taken into custody about five hours after police arrived.

Detectives remain at the scene searching for evidence connected to the case.

Police said the presence of six pit bulls in the suspect's apartment had complicated the response.

All six dogs were removed from the building unharmed with the help of animal control, BPD said.

Police said, as of 5 p.m., they were still working to determine what may have prompted the shooting.

The suspect's name was not immediately available pending the booking process.

Original story: An hours-long police standoff remains underway in West Berkeley on Monday after reports of gunfire inside an apartment on Eighth Street.

Police responded at about 10:20 a.m. to a report of gunfire at the apartment building, which is located in the 2400 block of Eighth Street near Dwight Way.

A caller told police that one bullet had gone into a neighbor's apartment unit, according to emergency dispatches that have not been confirmed.

Police quickly moved their radio traffic onto encrypted channels at about 10:30 a.m., said Stephan Baum-Harvey, a Cal student who runs a local feed on X (formerly Twitter) where he posts timely updates from Berkeley police and firefighter radio dispatches.

Monday morning, Berkeley police called out their Special Response Team, what other agencies call SWAT, to handle the incident.

Hearing nothing over the police radio, Baum-Harvey eventually went to the scene shortly before 1 p.m. to find out more.

"This is just a standoff right now," he wrote on his @ScanBerkeley X feed at 1:20 p.m. "PD appears to be trying to just wait him out."

Baum-Harvey said police had released no information at the scene. He posted updates online as the day wore on, as did at least one area resident.

Guillaume Pierre wrote that he was able to see a bullet hole in the front window of the apartment building that had been blocked off by police.

Shortly before 2 p.m., police began making announcements for the suspect to come out of the building.

Pierre shared video online and with The Scanner of BPD's attempt to contact the suspect at that time.

Throughout the day, some people were escorted in and out of the perimeter and, at one point, officers were speaking with a woman who had been identified by a neighbor as the suspect's wife, Baum-Harvey wrote.

At one point, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office drone team responded to the scene but later left, Baum-Harvey wrote.

Shortly after 3:30 p.m., a dog was removed from the apartment building.

The Berkeley Police Department has not responded to multiple inquiries about the ongoing situation.

This story will be updated when information is provided.

There have been more than 30 shootings in Berkeley this year with at least seven people wounded.

That's fewer shootings than there had been last year, when Berkeley and many other places continued to see an unusual uptick in gun violence that had begun during the COVID pandemic.