ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A St. Petersburg Police officer shot a man Tuesday who reportedly approached law enforcement personnel while waving a 10-inch knife.
- No officers injured
- Man shot by police in critical condition
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Officials said just before 1 p.m. police received a call from a resident in a neighborhood off 27th Avenue N. and west of 20th St. that a suspicious man with a large knife was walking around the neighborhood.
When officers arrived and confronted the man, he was reportedly pacing on a nearby pedestrian walkway stretching over I-275.
Police Chief Tony Holloway said officers boxed the man in and ordered him to drop the knife.
Officers said the man did not respond to any of those commands.
When a tactical team arrived at the scene and moved closer to the man, he reportedly then moved toward the officers.
Holloway said one officer tried use less lethal means to stop the subject. When that didn't work, another officer shot the man.
Holloway maintained that his officers did everything they could to end the incident peacefully.
"The officers took great patience on this," he explained. "Like I said, they took their time, they called in different people to speak different languages to make sure that he could understand what we were saying."
Holloway said they later learned the man spoke English and was just ignoring their commands. He is now in critical condition at Bayfront Medical Center.