'Nothing short of a miracle': Dramatic standoff with Philadelphia gunman ends with no loss of life

Throughout a seven-hour gun battle that turned a Philadelphia neighborhood into a war-zone and left six officers injured, the goal was "preservation of life," police commissioner Richard Ross said, explaining a day of intense gunfire and tear gas salvos before the gunman surrendered early Thursday.

At one point, with hundreds of officers pinned down by erratic gunfire, a SWAT team rescued two officers trapped upstairs with handcuffed prisoners in the north Philadelphia home.

In the end, the police tactics worked as the shooter, with his hands up, was driven from his home after a tear gas barrage and all the injured officers were treated and released.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today," Ross said.

Throughout the ordeal, he said, the goal was “preservation of life, irrespective of who it is.”

The gunman was identified as Maurice Hill, 36, a Philadelphia man with an extensive record of gun convictions and resisting arrest, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Associated Press reported.

The melee erupted as officers came to the house in a north Philadelphia neighborhood of brick and stone row homes to serve drug arrest warrants.

The standoff was especially unnerving as hundreds of officers, often pinned down by barrages of erratic gunfire from the house, had to operate in the densely populated area of narrow streets and tightly packed houses.