“Nwk Metro Walk away” Call

Do you remember how you hated to hear that radio call, “15A, you have a Norwalk Metro Hospital Walkaway, at so and so address.” One day, Tom Ellis and I were working a Day Shift Brook car when we received one of those calls, and we both made appropriate vulgar comments of disgust when I acknowledged it. Those calls meant you were going to have to take a mentally ill person into custody who, more often then not, did not want to cooperate with you or go back to the mental hospital, and there was a good chance of being involved in a fight, sometimes with men or women with phenomenal strength.

We reluctantly approached the residence, in the area of 132nd & Avalon. There was a railing on the front porch that ran parallel to the front of the house. We knocked on the door and it was answered by the subject’s mother, who told us that she had called the station. As we talked to her, I was looking into the living room, which was in shadows. Suddenly, I realized that the male walkaway was sitting in an armchair directly across from us, and much to my concern, he was built like the boxer Mike Tyson, with large shoulders and arms for his height, and looked like him, too.

I pointed him out to Tom, with a bit of a lump in my throat, and we both approached him. We were both trying to keep him relaxed, and we both probably sounded like someone crooning to a baby, as we each took an arm and began to cuff him. Once the first cuff went on, the battle was on. He jumped up, grabbed our jackets and made a bull rush (that would be a credit to any NFL Defensive Lineman) and pushed both of us out the front door. When we hit the porch railing, all three of us fell over it and landed on the front lawn in a big ball.

As we were rolling around in a pile trying to get the other cuff on him, suddenly, in the middle of all this commotion, the hair on the back of my neck stood up! I looked over my shoulder, and was shocked to see a young male pointing a shotgun at us, from about 30-40 yards away. I had just enough time to yell, “Gun, down,” when he fired the shotgun and the pellets just cleared us as we proned out on the grass. The suspect disappeared from our sight immediately.

I looked at the walkaway and he had proned out on the lawn just as we had. I laughed and pointed out what he had done. Tommy responded, “He may be crazy, but he’s not stupid!”

(I guess even the Ding had had enough because he let us cuff him with no more resistance.)

John Stacy