An area teenager has been hospitalized after a call from his mother to the police ended in the discharge of gunfire from a member of Burlington’s police force.
This “officer-involved” shooting occurred in the small hours on Sunday after the city’s emergency dispatchers received a frantic phone call from a woman in the Misty Springs Mobile Home Park about the volatile behavior of her 19-year-old son.
According to Burlington’s police department, the young man, who was later identified as Logan Blackwood, had tried to kill his handicapped brother in what his mother described as a drug-induced mania in her conversation with emergency dispatchers. The department added that its dispatchers ultimately heard a woman’s scream on the other end of the line even as officers were making haste to reach the mobile home park at 928 Sharpe Road.
Once they arrived on the scene, the officers reportedly guided Blackwood’s mother out of her trailer, established a perimeter, and tried to convince her son to give himself up peacefully. These attempts at “de-escalation” broke down when Blackwood suddenly burst from the home and allegedly charged at the officers.
The police department recalls that Blackwood continued to rush at the officers despite their orders for him to stand down. He also reportedly defied their attempts to subdue him through non-lethal means. According to the city’s police chief Alan Balog, Blackwood attacked one officer, whom the department has identified as Chandler Lawson, just as he was about to deploy a bean bag gun that fires a painful, but non-deadly, projectile.
At that point, fellow officer Colton Ziemba reportedly drew his sidearm and shot the 19-year-old suspect, who received serious but apparently non-fatal injuries as a result of the gunshots.
In a subsequent interview with The Alamance News, Balog emphasized that the altercation with Blackwood demonstrates the variety of non-lethal measures that the city’s police employ before they resort to deadly force against a particularly intractable suspect.
“Our officers have special training,” he added, “which includes tactics, de-escalation techniques, and the use of non-lethal weapons.”
According to the police department, Blackwood has been receiving treatment at an area hospital ever since his confrontation with the city’s police officers. In anticipation of his eventual recovery, the department has obtained arrest warrants against Blackwood for assault on a female, assault on an officer, and aggravated assault on a handicapped person. The police department adds that the suspect’s handicapped brother was rushed to a different hospital with injuries that Blackwood apparently inflicted before the arrival of officers.
In the meantime, the city’s police department has temporarily sidelined officers Ziemba and Lawson as it awaits the results of an independent inquiry into Sunday’s events.
“The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation has been requested to conduct a thorough investigation into the shooting incident,” the department went on to elaborate in a formal statement on Sunday. “The involved officers are currently on administrative leave, as is standard practice in officer-involved shootings.”
