A 54-year-old man armed with a knife stabbed an Albany, NY, police officer in the bicep Monday and then was shot by another officer, police say. After being shot in the torso, the suspect continued trying to stab the officer again. The police chief praises his officers for working to deescalate the situation even after the officer had been stabbed.
Officers responded to a call at a home and encountered the man who had an outstanding warrant for obstruction of breathing involving a case with a woman at a different location. As officers were taking him into custody, he took a knife out of his pocket and stabbed an officer, police reported to WRGB.
Both the officer and the suspect were reported by police to be in stable condition following the incident. By Tuesday the officer had been released from the hospital.
Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins played several videos from the involved officers’ body-worn cameras during a Tuesday press conference as he credited the officers for using restraint and trying to deescalate the situation after the man had already stabbed one officer.
“I mentioned yesterday about the extraordinary amount of restraint that was used by the officer that fired the weapon, this is an example of that. This person had just made a second assault against this officer inches away from that officer’s head with that weapon, was making no indication that he was stopping the assault,” Hawkins said during the press conference. “That officer, at that moment, it may be even shortly before this moment that you see right now, would have been justified in continuing lethal force in order to stop an assault. This officer had the conscious awareness at this point to understand that maybe there's a different way that this can be resolved.”
Rather than firing additional rounds at the armed suspect, the officer is heard telling him to put the weapon down because he wanted to render aid to the man after shooting him. The wounded officer is also heard asking for a tourniquet for his injured arm.
Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins explains video from an officer’s body-worn camera that depicts how officers dealt with a man armed with a knife through de-escalation after the man had already stabbed one officer.PHOTO: Albany Police Department
