Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the unidentified man was seen walking his pit-bull in a nearby park when he allegedly swung an axe or machete at another person for no apparent reason.
This was all observed by a police officer who tried to arrest the suspect; that's when he ran home and has been barricaded inside ever since.
Philadelphia Police soon responded to the 700 block of Price Street in Germantown where they remained for hours.
At around 9:30 p.m., authorities released canisters of teargas in hopes that the barricaded man would come out of the home. He did not.
SWAT teams and Northwest Detectives set up a staging area at Price and McMahon Streets, where they have been all day.
"He has on three occasions fired inside the property and on one occasion pointed a firearm at police," Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan said.
Indications are that the man may have been under the influence of drugs, suffers from depression, and according to a woman, who did not want to be indentified, has suffered several personal setbacks.
"This Easter marks two years that he found his dad dead, since then he's been having a really hard time," the woman said.
Residents were not evacuated, but police advised them to stay inside and to stay away from windows. Those who were outside at the start of this incident have not been allowed back home.
"We're cognizant of the fact it is the Easter holiday and this is a disruption to the neighborhood, but the bottom line is that we're not going to provoke a confrontation that is not necessary and if necessary, we will wait him out," Sullivan said.
Neighbor Lee Lee Horace says her three children are with her mother right now, but she can't get to them ever since the SWAT teams arrived.
Horace says her neighbor, known only to her as Will, reportedly fired shots at the police. This is not confirmed, though.
She calls her neighbor harmless, but emotionally troubled.
"Ever since his parents passed, both of them, I don't know what's going on with him, and ever since then, he's just gone off," Horace said.
Neighbors say the more recent death of a best friend could have prompted today's standoff.
Negotiations by bullhorn have failed.
"He's telling them, the reason he won't come out is they are trying to hurt him and they're telling him, nobody's going to hurt you, just come out; he don't know them, if I was in my house, I wouldn't come out neither," neighbor Myron Allen said.
The standoff finally came to an end shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday. No word yet on charges.
No injuries have been reported.
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