A welfare check on a Mount Penn home whose owner hadn\u2019t been seen for weeks \u2014 and was later found dead in the basement \u2014 turned into an hours-long ordeal Wednesday afternoon, drawing the local fire company and a tactical team trained in high-risk entry.<\/p>\n
The events unfolded shortly before 3 p.m. after a neighbor in the 100 block of Hollywood Avenue requested that Central Berks Regional police check on the 45-year-old male homeowner who lived alone, Chief Justin Johnson said Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were concerned because they hadn\u2019t seen or heard from him in a couple of weeks, and mail was piling up,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Officers found the house locked and got no response, so they contacted a relative who entered the home and allowed officers to enter. That was about 90 minutes after the neighbors\u2019 call, he said.<\/p>\n
The relatives led officers to every room in the house, calling for the man. Finally, when the relative opened the basement door to call for him, there was a flash of fire, Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The cause of that fire hasn\u2019t been identified.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point we were uncertain if someone was setting us up with a booby trap,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cEveryone pulled back to do their stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police summoned the Berks County Emergency Response Team, a tactical unit, as well as Mount Penn Fire Company.<\/p>\n
Police evacuated a few homes on the same side of the block as the house and took to social media to ask the public to stay away from the immediate area of the incident, which lies in the heart of Mount Penn.<\/p>\n
By then, the nearby Antietam School District\u2019s Kerry C. Hoffman Intermediate School had let out for the day, but some students and personnel were still there for after-school activities, Johnson explained. Officers eventually led the students out of the building to the custody of parents or guardians.<\/p>\n
As evening approached, the tactical team entered the basement and found the homeowner dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, Johnson said. The Berks County coroner\u2019s office was summoned.<\/p>\n
Shortly after 6 p.m., Central Berks police posted on their Facebook page: \u201cThe scene is secured, and there is NO threat to the public. Thank you for your patience!\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said the cause of the fire remains under investigation but that investigators have determined there was no booby trap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A welfare check on a Mount Penn home whose owner hadn\u2019t been seen for weeks \u2014 and was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,202,182,29643,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-298017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-local-news","tag-mt-penn","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}