MILTON, Wash. — A SWAT officer used a Taser to subdue an armed 80-year-old man after he charged at him in his wheelchair shouting, “I have nothing to live for."
The Metro Pierce County SWAT team was called to a senior citizen’s apartment complex in Milton around noon Tuesday after reports that man was suicidal and armed with a handgun.
Officers evacuated several apartments, but before they could contain the suspect he left the complex in his electric wheelchair.
He was spotted about two blocks away trying to hide in some bushes. When an officer approached him the man charged toward him in the chair, said spokesman Pierce County Sheriff’s Detective Ed Troyer.
“They did find a handgun on him. He had what appeared to be a semiautomatic 9mm handgun tucked into a makeshift holster,” Troyer said.
The man was taken into custody and transported to a hospital in Tacoma for observation because of the use of a Taser to subdue him. Officers said even though he was 80 and in a wheelchair, the man still posed a serious safety threat.
“It didn’t make him any less dangerous than anyone else who’s armed and depressed and suicidal,” Troyer said.
KIRO
