A 43-year-old man lunged at a cop with a knife. The incident could have ended ugly.
It didn’t. So New Haven didn’t make the latest headline about police harming a suspect.
The non-news occurred this past Thursday night around 9:30. Here’s what happened, according to top Hill South cop Lt. Brendan Hosey:
The 43-year-old man, who was intoxicated, picked an “unprovoked” fight with his 23-year-old son inside a home on Congress Avenue. The fight spilled out onto White Street. A family member called 911.
Officers arrived. The man brandished a folding knife with a four-inch blade.
“Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” the officer repeatedly ordered him.
He ignored the warnings. He waved the knife at the cops.
Officers John Schmaltz and Paul Prusinski pepper-sprayed the man, who then lunged at Prusinski with the knife. He missed.
The mankept waving the knife at the officers to keep them away. At one point he used his free hand to steel himself against a chain-link fence.
One of the officers had a gun out, just in case the man attacked again.
Schmaltz managed to get close enough to strike the man in the leg with a baton. That caused the man to drop the knife. At that point officers converged on him, gang-tackled him, and put him under arrest on charges of second-degree assault, carrying a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct.
“He doesn’t know,” Hosey said, “how lucky he was that he dropped the knife.”
I'm glad no one got hurt, but pepper spray against a knife wielding man who lunged at a police officer after ignoring several warnings. That concerns me in a deadly force situation.