You know, you have to admire the professionalism and restraint police officers use quite frequently. For example, if there was ever a time where absolutely nobody would blame an officer for unloading a full magazine into a guy, this is it. A police officer in Deposit, New York pulled a guy over for a routine traffic stop. The driver got out of the car and started approaching the cop, telling him he was having a bad day, and that someone else was about to. Which is pretty threatening behavior, but not really cause for use of deadly force.
But the tomahawk the guy was swinging sure was.
DEPOSIT, N.Y. – Police subdued a man with a Taser gun after he tried to attack an officer with a Tomahawk. Jeffrey Moore, 37, of Deposit, was immediately dropped to the ground before he could harm the officer when two jolts of electricity passed through his body.
"Somebody's life was saved because of the Taser and it was probably the defendant's," said Deposit Police Chief Timothy Roberts.
The incident began at 11:35 p.m. Thursday when Moore was pulled over for a routine traffic violation in Deposit — 93 miles southwest of Albany, police said.
Moore got out of the car holding what looked like a hatchet, refused to drop it, and began swinging it as he approached the officer, officials said.
"The officer asked Moore what he was doing with the hatchet, and he replied that he was having a really bad day and someone else was about to," Roberts said.
Officials declined to release the name of the officer who used the Taser.
Apparently scalping is making a comeback in upstate New York. Who knew? I suspect that the attacker's life was definitely saved because the cop chose the Taser. He would have been justified in using his gun, though. (For our non-North American readers, a tomahawk is a type of hatchet, generally associated with war use, see picture below. It is usually classified as a deadly weapon).
