A man holding a gun to his head temporarily shut down traffic on a busy Homewood roadway before police convinced him to put down the weapon.

The ordeal began just before 2 p.m. Tuesday at a shopping center parking lot in the 10 block of Green Springs Highway.

Lt. John Carr said an officer was parked there when a man approached him with a gun pointed at his own head.

The officer tried to talk to him, and additional units responded.

Carr said they shut down Green Springs Highway as a precaution.

Video posted to social media showed the man pacing back and forth with the gun pointed at himself, while armed officers stood poised nearby.

Police negotiated with the man for about 20 minutes before they were able to get him to drop the gun. Carr said the man was in coherent and taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Sgt. Mark Trippe commended the officers on the scene for deescalating the situation.