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Deputy shoots at man holding Lego gun near Woodinville

November 15, 2012 at 2:51 PM

A King County sheriff’s deputy fired at but missed hitting a developmentally-disabled man who had brandished a toy gun at passing motorists this morning near Cottage Lake.

The man, who deputies have encountered before, has a “fascination with guns” and had made the handgun out of black Lego blocks, said Deputy Charlie Akers, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

Sometime around 11:10 a.m. drivers called 911 to report a man brandishing a handgun at passing cars on Northeast Woodinville-Duvall Road, just east of Mink Road Northeast in unincorporated King County, between Woodinville and Duvall, Akers said.

The first deputy arrived minutes later and the man ignored her commands, Akers said. When he pulled the gun from his waistband and raised it, the deputy fired from about 25 yards away but knew she hadn’t hit him, he said. The man dropped to the ground and other deputies moved in to handcuff him.

While on the ground, “he made a movement to grab the gun and they just jumped on him,” Akers said. “At that point, they slid the gun away from him and discovered it was made out of Legos.”

Akers couldn’t say how many times the female deputy fired her weapon, but said the man was standing on the side of the road with only trees and an embankment behind him.

The man is a resident of a nearby group home and has made Lego guns before, he said. A caretaker at the group home witnessed the incident but adhered to a policy “not to go hands-on” with the potentially-dangerous resident, Akers said.

The man was taken into custody and involuntarily committed for a mental-health evaluation, according to Akers.

“Because of his mental capacity, my guess is he will not be charged with anything,” he said. “Obviously it could have been a lot worse … but fortunately, he wasn’t hurt.”

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2012/11/deputy-shoots-at-man-holding-lego-gun-near-woodinville/