A SWAT officer grabs a gun from a Howland police car before going back to a barricade set up at the site of a standoff in Austintown on Tuesday....Staff photo / Emily Scott

AUSTINTOWN — A 19-hour standoff at an Austintown apartment complex that began Monday night ended in gunfire Tuesday afternoon when officers stormed an apartment where a woman with a gun was holed up.

Two to three shots were fired around 4:15 p.m. Tuesday after authorities removed a 9-year-old boy from an apartment room. Paramedics entered 10 minutes later to remove the woman, identified by police as Imonie Hackett, 31, of 4851 Westchester Drive. She was carried out on a gurney to a waiting ambulance.

Ohio State Highway Patrol, the FBI and Austintown police were on scene at the time of the shooting. Ohio State Highway Patrol regional public information officer Sgt. Ryan Purpura would not comment other than confirming that it was an officer-involved shooting and that he did not have an update on the woman’s condition.

Residents said they were shocked by the scene. Several said their building generally is quiet, and they never expected anything like this would happen to them.

Destiney Bowman and her wife live in the apartment diagonally from the woman. Bowman said she saw her neighbor load her gun repeatedly, which caused them to call police.

When police arrived, they found Hackett and her son sitting in the doorway of their apartment with the door open. According to a police report, the officers told her they were there to check on her. She retorted that they were not the real police, and that people from Chicago were watching her.

The officers asked her son if he was OK and if his mom acted like this often. He answered yes to both questions, the report states. The report notes she then said she was fine and did not need help before shutting the door.

But she then opened the door with a gun, and the officers drew their weapons and told her to drop the firearm. She retreated back into the apartment with her son, police said.

Police evacuated the first-floor residents through the window. Residents living on the first and second floors got out around 10 p.m. Tyler Roth and Samantha Heestand, who live on the third floor, said they were not evacuated until around 11:30 p.m.

In total, 11 apartments were evacuated. Residents left without their keys, phones or wallets, and several left without shoes.

Throughout Tuesday, many other law enforcement entities assisted with the standoff, including the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department, the regional SWAT team, and Youngstown, Warren, Howland and Canfield police. The investigation has now been handed over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations and state police.

The woman had been on Facebook Live several times throughout the standoff. She kept asking what was going on and why everyone was freaking out. She went live when the standoff started and she could be heard loading multiple magazines, according to neighbors. Many of the videos have since been deleted from Facebook.

“I know he is scared to death. He doesn’t know what’s going on,” Joan McDavid said about Hackett’s son. McDavid said she doesn’t know Hackett well, but took her son to school.

Many neighbors echoed the sentiment that while they did not know Hackett, her son is “the nicest little kid.” Several said they felt much calmer after they knew he was safe.

Bowman said she has lived in the apartment building for a couple of years and never had an incident with the woman until about two weeks ago when she was knocking on residents’ doors with a gun.

Residents gathered together outside on the street near their building through the night. Temperatures dropped to the mid-60s. One man needed insulin, one had a broken foot, and several are elderly.

Several neighbors said most of them didn’t sleep all night.

Despite this, Roth said they were all singing “Kum Ba Ya” and making the best of the situation.

escott@tribtoday.com