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An Army sergeant was wounded and taken into custody after firefighters responding to a smoke report at a Fayetteville, North Carolina, apartment complex came under gunfire on the night of Jan. 13, 2012.

Fayetteville Fire Department crews were called to the Austin Creek Apartments off 71st School Road about 10 p.m. Police said that when firefighters could not get into a third floor unit and officers were called for backup, Staff Sgt. Joshua P. Eisenhauer began shooting, pinning down firefighters and officers before retreating inside. Nearby apartments were evacuated, and negotiators tried for hours to reach him without success.

About 2:30 a.m., the Fayetteville police Emergency Response Team blew the front door open with explosives and sent in a robot, which found Eisenhauer on the kitchen floor. He had been hit by return fire and was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center and then to UNC Hospitals in critical but stable condition. Two officers had minor injuries, one treated at a hospital and the other at the scene. Prosecutors later said Eisenhauer fired about 24 rounds from a 9 mm pistol.

Eisenhauer, a Fort Bragg soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division who had deployed twice to Afghanistan, was initially charged with 15 counts of attempted first degree murder, six counts of assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm and nine counts of assault on a government official with a firearm. The attempted murder charges were dismissed, and he was convicted in 2015 of 15 counts of assault on law officers and government officials.

The sentencing hearing turned on his mental health. Psychologists testified he had come back from Afghanistan a paranoid, hyper vigilant insomniac who was so delusional that he drew a weapon whenever anyone came to his door, and retired Col. John Orendorff told the court the Army had failed to give him proper treatment. Prosecutors argued that Eisenhauer had not pursued treatment for his worsening symptoms and had been drinking heavily before he opened fire.

Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons sentenced Eisenhauer on Aug. 6, 2015, to 10 to 18 years in prison plus 36 months of probation, saying Eisenhauer belonged in prison because another flashback could put innocent people in danger. Assistant Fire Chief Robert Brinson said many of his firefighters needed counseling afterward, and Police Chief Harold Medlock said his officers had been ambushed.

An Army board in October 2015 found that Eisenhauer had committed misconduct but recommended an honorable discharge that kept him eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs health care. North Carolina prison records list a 12 year term, a release on May 1, 2019 and the end of his supervision on April 30, 2020.

The recording runs about 23 minutes of radio traffic from that night. It opens on the fire dispatch and the first arriving companies working what was reported as a structure fire, then carries the shooting reports, the call for police and the traffic that follows once the response becomes a police operation. It is a logging tape, recorded off the dispatch channels rather than from any one unit.