Posted on 05/30/2003 12:52:32 PM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Rowlett police fire nonlethal weapon to end standoff
05/30/2003
The Rowlett Police Department's first use of a firearm against a suspect in years may have saved the man's life.
Confronted Tuesday by a distraught man wielding an assault rifle, officers calmed him as much as possible, then fired a 40 mm foam rubber projectile.
Result: The situation was defused, and the suspect suffered only a bruise.
"This won't always work," said Lt. Dean Poos, a police spokesman. "But that one launcher we purchased has paid for itself in saving a human life."
Lt. Poos, who joined the department in 1989, said it was the only shooting by a Rowlett officer in the city that he could remember. An officer did fire on a suspect a few years ago, he said, but that was outside the city.
This confrontation began about 10 p.m. with several disturbance calls from neighbors and from a home in the 9100 block of Willowbrook Drive.
Officers arrived and a woman with a minor stab wound in her leg; hospitalization wasn't required. Her husband, Max Jay Ball, 54, was in the alley with a military-style assault rifle, Lt. Poos said.
During a 90-minute confrontation, a crisis negotiator from the department was able to calm Mr. Ball. Then a lieutenant from the tactical unit fired what police called a "less-lethal" round from the launcher.
Police said it was the first time they had used the launcher, which fires rubber, foam or wooden rounds to cause pain and bruising.
"The shots can be lethal if they hit in the wrong spot," Lt. Poos said. "But local law enforcement agencies are using them a lot more. You need some way of disabling a suspect without using deadly force."
Rowlett paramedics treated Mr. Ball for a bruise.
Mr. Ball was being held without bail Thursday in the Rockwall County Jail on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
This story also appears in the Rockwall-Rowlett Morning News.
E-mail sterry@dallasnews.com
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