Officer Shot Man Armed With Knife During Mental Health Crisis: Police

Updated at 2:25 p.m.

BALTIMORE, MD — An officer shot a man who was armed with a knife and experiencing a mental health crisis on Monday at an apartment building in Baltimore, according to police.

Authorities were called just after 10:30 a.m. to the 1100 block of Park Avenue for a person with a knife trying to hurt people and arrived to find the person in the hall, screaming, with the knife, Police Commissioner Richard Worley said during a press conference posted on Facebook by WBAL.

The person went into an apartment, then came back out at prompting by police, but refused to drop the knife despite attempts by law enforcement to de-escalate the situation. Instead, the man came toward officers, according to Worley, who said a Taser had no effect on the person.

An officer shot the person twice in the lower leg, but he still did not drop the knife and police retreated for several minutes until they were able to get the person to put down the weapon, Worley said.

“Even after he was on the ground, we couldn’t get the knife from him,” Worley said.

When the man finally did drop the weapon, he was taken into custody and taken to a local hospital, but remained combative, so much so that the ambulance driver at one point had to pull over due to the person’s behavior, Worley told reporters.

He also confirmed the incident was the result of a mental health crisis and noted police “did a phenomenal job in a very, very chaotic situation.”