Photo courtesy Brittany Shelton.[/caption] Burien Police/King County Sheriff’s Office is reporting that they received a call of a man waving a large knife around on Saturday, Dec. 30 around 11 a.m. in the 162-16800 block of Des Moines Memorial Drive (map below).

UPDATE: The man was initially seen near Highline High School with the knife before moving towards Des Moines Memorial Drive.
This resulted in a large police turnout, and Des Moines Memorial Drive was closed for a while. “We did contact the man who did in fact have a large butcher type knife and he appeared to be having a mental health crisis,” Sgt. Cindi West told The B-Town Blog. “He would not stop for us and talked incoherently. When initially contacted, he continued to run through the area.” Police eventually took the man into custody. “We did not locate any victims of threats by him but because of his mental health we involuntarily had him transported for mental health evaluation,” Sgt. West added. Here are more details from Capt. Bryan Howard at Burien P.D.:
On 12-30-2017 Officers were dispatched to Highline High School to a report of a male brandishing and threatening passerby’s with a knife. Witness’s stated the male continued to wave the knife in the air and act erratically. Officers quickly arrived on scene and attempted to stop the male from going into oncoming traffic and to drop the knife. Officers surrounded and tried to speak with the male to understand what was going on. The male refused to speak with the officers and yelled at them.
More officers arrived on scene as the male continued to try the leave the scene and walk towards Des Moines Memorial Drive. Pepper Spray was used by officers, but took no effect. After several rounds of Pepper Spray, Officers were eventually able to subdue the man. The 10-inch kitchen knife was secured. The male was initially transported to hospital. No officers were injured and the male received treatment for pepper spray. (case# C17063259).
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