Man dangles kids in front of window after attacking police lobby with chainsaw, cops say
A man dangled two young children in front of his home’s second-story window after first attacking a police headquarters lobby with a chainsaw, according to authorities in Massachusetts.
The Cohasset Police Department said the civilian desk attendant in the headquarters building frantically called for help at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18. The worker reported a man drove over the police station’s lawn, hit a tree, then got out of his pickup truck with a gas-powered chainsaw, according to a news release.
The 35-year-old man was revving the chainsaw as he entered the lobby, police said, then he began attacking the lobby with it. He tried “chopping at the security door, attempting to gain entry into a restricted area where the attendant was,” authorities said.
He damaged the door and some mail packages, authorities said, before escaping in his truck.
Officers tracked him down in Cohasset and created a perimeter around his home while calling for more help, according to a Facebook post.
Authorities said the man began yelling at the officers from inside his home, and he was seen dangling two small kids in front of the window.
He refused to come out of the home, police said, so a ‘tactical alert’ was called, meaning officers from surrounding towns were called to the hostage situation.
“Attempts to de-escalate the situation failed,” police said, so Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council hostage negotiators and a regional SWAT team were called in.
“After hours-long negotiations, the male became more erratic to the point where SWAT supervisors sought permission to enter the home due to the increasingly clear and present danger to the children,” authorities said in the post. “Permission was granted by Cohasset Commanders, and the suspect was taken into custody after resisting arrest.”
Police said “the children were quickly scooped up by officers,” taken outside the home and reunited with their mom and grandfather.
The man was taken to a hospital after he was “brought down” by a electronic control weapon , often called a Taser, according to the news release.
He was later released from the hospital and booked into jail on several charges, including three counts of damage to property, two counts of child endangerment, resisting arrest and driving to endanger.
McClatchy News is not naming the man to protect the identity of the children. Authorities have not publicly said their relation to the man.
Cohasset is about 30 miles southeast of Boston.
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