1 taken into custody after police with guns drawn surround Downtown Pittsburgh parking garage

A woman was taken into custody after law enforcement officers surrounded a Downtown Pittsburgh parking garage with guns drawn on Wednesday afternoon.

The tense situation started when law enforcement was looking for a 25-year-old Armoni Burton, who was wanted on federal firearm charges, authorities said. Sources told KDKA the woman was a passenger in a vehicle that Pittsburgh Bureau of Police officers tried to pull over around 4 p.m. The driver then pulled into the garage on Stanwix Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard, sources added. 

A spokesperson for Pittsburgh Public Safety said in a statement that the woman ran and threw a gun under a car in the garage. Another Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson added in a statement that the police presence stemmed from a joint operation between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the bureau's Pittsburgh Police Fugitive Apprehension Unit, saying the woman was taken into custody after getting out of the vehicle and fleeing. 

Burton, along with 22-year-old Ausaun Porter and 21-year-old Lawrence Strothers Jr., was named in a 14-count indictment that federal prosecutors announced on Thursday. The U.S. attorney's office said the trio committed a series of crimes from late December through January, including a kidnapping, carjacking and robbery. Burton is also charged with robbing a postal delivery person and other drug charges, prosecutors said. 

A security guard at the garage told KDKA that the woman was found in the basement and the driver was found on the second floor. 

Video from the scene showed a large police presence, with officers surrounding the building and at times, drawing their firearms. The garage was shut down as police investigated, and the nearby Gateway Center office complex was placed on lockdown. Witnesses described the scene as "chaos."

"We just kept getting pushed away because they said it was too dangerous and they did not want us caught in the crossfire," one witness told KDKA.