Edmonds police say a 23-year-old Mountlake Terrace man who was being treated for a mental health crisis viciously assaulted a nurse in Swedish Hospital, before he escaped, stripped off his gown, and ran naked into the street, assaulting several random people and police officers Saturday morning.
Edmond police Sgt. Shane Hawley said the man’s rampage was beyond anything he’d ever seen, saying four tasers did nothing to slow the man down.
“I mean this guy was running around attacking random strangers,” he said. “He had already violently assaulted a nurse at the E.R. just sitting at a desk. He’s obviously in some sort of mental health crisis. Mountlake Terrace police had dealt with him the night before, for exactly the same thing, so this was a repeated pattern with him, he was taken to the hospital, and he escaped.”
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Staff members at Swedish called 911 Saturday at 9:45 a.m. reporting a patient had punched a nurse in the face repeatedly as she sat a desk. “Poor nurse, I mean she was viciously attacked,” Hawley said. A spokesperson for Swedish hospital told KIRO-7 the 27-year-old nurse was recovering from her injuries.
Soon, drivers on S.R. 99 were calling 911 when the man was seen attacking a man in a Dick’s drive in parking lot, before sprinting away again.
In the parking lot of a nearby Starbucks, the man punched a dent into a 71-year-old woman’s car before he got into the car and attacked her.
“I’ve never seen anyone punch a car like that and do that amount of damage,” Hawley said. I don’t think I could do that amount of damage with a hard metal object.”
When Edmonds police cornered the man, Hawley said their tasers were useless. “Four separate taser attempts, nothing, didn’t even phase him,” he said. “Finally we ended up getting him kind of corralled and that when he turned on us, started attacking the officers.”
Sgt. Hawley said it took all four officers everything they had to stop the man who was booked for assault and returned back to Swedish where he’s being treated in a secure area.
“We’re just thankful that even though I ended up getting injured, I’d take a black eye any day of the week to take this guy into custody, so that he doesn’t hurt someone else,” Hawley said.
Cox Media Group
