Police: Levittown man charged after trading gunfire with officers
Stephen Schwartz allegedly shot a .22 rifle at officers responding to his home in September.
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A Levittown man, allegedly in the midst of a manic episode, threatened to kill himself with a .22 rifle that he later fired at police officers called to his home by his wife, according to authorities.
Stephen Schwartz, 34, was arraigned on Thursday and charged with aggravated assault, terroristic threats, reckless endangerment, and related offenses. There was no attorney listed for him, and he faces a preliminary hearing on Nov. 20. Schwartz was released on $50,000 unsecured bail.
A Tullytown Borough police officer who shot Schwartz during the incident was cleared, according to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.
Schwartz's wife called police on Sept. 22, saying he had shot himself in a leg at their home, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in his arrest.
She warned dispatchers that Schwartz "was having a manic episode and would most likely get violent with police."
When officers from Bristol Township and Tullytown arrived, a shot was fired toward their marked vehicles from inside the home, the affidavit states. Schwartz then walked out of his home with the .22 rifle and pointed it at the officers.
The officers told him to put the gun down. When he refused, Tullytown Police Sgt. Phillip Kulan shot Schwartz once, according to the affidavit. Schwartz was then taken into custody and treated for minor injuries.
County detectives later interviewed Schwartz's wife, learning that she had come home earlier that evening to find her children standing outside their home.
They told her that her husband was in the backyard with a gun. She found Schwartz back there, shooting targets with a "bullet hole in the calf of his leg," the affidavit states. Schwartz said he had accidentally shot himself. When his wife pressed him, Schwartz put the barrel of the gun inside his mouth, she told police.
Detectives entered the couple's home and found a hole in the screen of a first-floor bathroom window, which Schwartz's wife said "was the window her husband must have shot at the police from."