Man Shoots Himself Inside Dick’s Sporting Goods

A man who barricaded himself inside a Dicks Sporting Goods store shot himself after a more than three-hour standoff with police.

According to Falls Township police spokesman Lt. Henry Ward, the man entered the store at approximately 7 p.m. and asked a clerk if he could see a 12-gauge shotgun. He asked the employee to take the gun lock off the weapon.

When the clerk replied that is was against store policy, the man pointed a handgun at the employee, had him remove the gunlock and told him to leave the store and call the police, Ward said.

"He somehow got ahold of the ammunition for the shotgun, loaded it and wandered the store as employees cleared everybody out," Ward said. "When the first officers arrived on the scene, he ran to the male bathroom and shut himself in."

Employees at Dick's helped evacuate the store, and the entire complex, where there is also an Old Navy and Barnes & Noble, was evacuated at 8 p.m.

"This could have been a nightmare," Ward said. "He was walking around with two loaded weapons."

Police waited the man out for three hours, with no contact with the gunman. The response team used a robot to enter the bathroom and saw the man lying on the floor with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the body, Ward said.

According to Ward, the man, identified as 58-year-old Mark McCarty of Levittown, had a history of confrontations. In 2002, he was engaged in an armed standoff with Middletown police and was talked down, and in 2010 he was involuntary committed to a psychiatric facility.

McCarty died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, according to Bucks County Coroner Joseph Campbell.