Video: Ohio Cop Disarms Suicidal 12-Year-Old Holding a Butcher’s Knife to His Own Throat

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A video shot in Ohio shows a police officer disarming a 12-year-old boy who was holding a large knife to his own throat on Monday, Nov. 19.

Officer Brandon Judd, 31, was able to grab the boy from behind in Grove City, Ohio, in a strip mall, according to local reports.

The boy had escaped from Buckeye Ranch Client & Mental Health Services, climbed a tree, broke a branch, and hit a police officer with it, reported ABC6.

He then went into a Dollar Tree store and stole two large knives.

In the video, the boy, who was not named in the report, can be seen holding one up to his throat.

“I’m just trying to keep my distance, talk to him, see what’s going through his head,” Judd told ABC6. “Obviously he’s going through some sort of crisis.”

“I wasn’t sure what his intentions were, if he was going to hurt himself or hurt me or try to hurt another innocent bystander,” he said.

He said officers and the boy didn’t “communicate at all.”

A video shot in Ohio shows a police officer disarming a 12-year-old boy who was holding a large knife to his own throat, on Nov. 19, 2018. (Grove City Police)

“We all knew what was going on. They knew what I was doing. I knew what they were doing without actually saying a word,” he added.

Judd then used a cruiser as a distraction. “I figured if I could slowly walk out of his view, maybe he would forget about me,” he said.

Then he approached the boy. “(I’m) going against our training,” Judd said. “I knew I’d be able to overpower the kid if I could get close enough.”

He moved in and grabbed the preteen’s wrists and got him to drop the knives.

“I didn’t think too much about it until it was all over with,” Judd added. “Once I walked away I was shaking and I couldn’t believe what just happened and how well everything turned out.”

“It was a huge relief,” he said. “People may not realize that even though he’s a small child, he could still hurt somebody or hurt himself with those knives.”

Police records say the boy was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and was released, according to the ABC affiliate report. He will face charges of assault, menacing, and theft.

Violent Crime in the US

The number of murders and violent crimes committed in the United States dropped slightly in 2017, according to new crime statistics released in September 2018.

“Crime declined nationwide last year, consistent with our earlier analyses of 2017 data in the nation’s 30 largest cities,” Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, told the Washington Times. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that even while crime is falling, the number of Americans incarcerated remains near-record highs. Now is the time to address the problem.”

The number of cases of manslaughter and murder dropped 0.7 percent in 2017 from the prior year, the report said.

Rapes rose by 3 percent and aggravated assault rose by 1 percent, but overall violent crimes dropped 0.2 percent, the report added.