Bean-bag weapon lets police incapacitate suicidal suspect

By JANE MEINHARDT

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 26, 1999

SEMINOLE -- He placed a knife to his throat, tossed a suicide note to the pavement and asked sheriff's deputies to shoot him.

One deputy leveled his shotgun and squeezed off a round.

But instead of being hit by shotgun pellets, the man was felled by a special bean-bag shell.

The man, who was taken to the Pinellas County Jail early Saturday after hospital treatment, had not been identified Monday.

Sheriff's Sgt. Greg Tita said the man would tell deputies only that his name is Greg and he is 29 years old. He was charged with aggravated assault, auto theft and obstruction of justice.

The incident happened at 1:15 a.m. Saturday after a patrolling deputy saw a red 1989 Ford Mustang changing lanes erratically on Ulmerton Road near 119th Street. He pulled over the car at Ulmerton and Walsingham roads. The Ford, which deputies determined later had been stolen, pulled into a parking lot at the intersection.

Tita said the driver told the deputy his license had been suspended for drunken driving. As the man got out of the car, he put something in his left hand. Tita said the deputy drew his gun when the man displayed an open pocketknife.

The man put the knife to his throat and began walking backward, telling the deputy to shoot him. He threw a folded piece of paper, later found to be a suicide note addressed to a woman, at the deputy.

As the man dug the knife into his throat, a sheriff's sergeant trained to use a special weapon fired a bean bag at him. The force of the device knocked him down, and he was disarmed.

Tita said only supervisors are allowed to use the less-than-lethal weapon, which is a 12-gauge shotgun that fires a shell loaded with a bean bag. It is designed to subdue and disarm people without causing fatal injury. The department began using them two years ago.

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