South Portland Police took into custody a suicidal and combative military veteran during an incident on Benjamin Pickett Street Tuesday night.

Officers were called to a parking lot where a man was sitting in his truck, threatening suicide.

Police asked the 29-year-old man to talk, but instead he jumped from his vehicle and confronted the officers in an aggressive manner, according to a police statement.

He then grabbed a hockey stick from the bed of his truck and challenged the officers with it. Police ordered him to drop the stick. He complied with that order, but did not comply with other commands and was still hostile. An officer attempted to restrain the man, but he assaulted the officer.

Police were able to take the man into custody only after they deployed a police dog and Tasered him.

The man was transported to a hospital for medical and psychological evaluation. Police found a knife and marijuana in his truck. Although he was not arrested, a report of the incident will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s office. The man could be prosecuted for refusing to submit to arrest and assaulting the officers.

According to South Portland Police, more than a third of use-of-force incidents in the city in 2015 were related to non-criminal matters, mostly involving someone in a mental health crisis. Nearly 80 percent of all use-of-force incidents involved people in crisis or who had been using drugs or alcohol.

Copy the Story Link