A Boston police officer was stabbed and the suspect was shot dead after officers, EMS and a clinician responded to an apartment for a reported mental health crisis, officials said. Several other first responders were also injured.
The incident happened at about 10:44 a.m. Saturday in the 200 block of Hemenway Street, near Northeastern University, after a man called 911 and said four people with a gun were trying to harm him, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said in a press briefing.
Cox said officers found the caller inside the apartment and began speaking with him through the door. EMS and a clinician were called to the scene, and after an extended period of time they concluded the man was in immediate need of attention because he appeared to be suffering from a mental health crisis.
As responders tried to get him to come out and seek treatment, the man opened the door and attacked them, Cox said. He was armed with some type of sword and stabbed one officer in the arm, while also knocking the EMS clinician to the ground.
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One or more officers then used a Taser and fired their weapons, Cox said. The man was given medical aid at the scene and taken to a hospital, where he later died.
Police applied a tourniquet to the wounded officer before he was taken to a hospital for treatment for a severe laceration. Multiple officers and the EMS clinician were also taken to local hospitals with injuries that were believed to be non-life-threatening.
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said his office is conducting a full investigation into the officer-involved shooting.
“This was a very chaotic circumstance,” Hayden said. “There were a number of first responders, both from the mental health perspective, as well as members of the Boston Police Department, doing everything they could to deal with a difficult situation and the individual who was clearly in some sort of mental distress.”
Hayden said investigators were still in the early stages of the case and that it would take time before authorities have a full picture of what happened.