By Police1 Staff
MOUNT HEALTHY, Ohio — Officers deployed a TASER on a suspect after he refused to drop a replica handgun, Cincinnati.com reported.
The officers suspected the gun was a toy as it still had an orange tip, Lt. Stephen Saunders told the publication.
“The officers would have been in their right to use deadly force at that point and thankfully they didn’t,’' Demasi said. “They suspected it to be a fake gun. Those additional seconds saved this guy from being shot.”
Officers were responding a domestic disturbance on Feb. 19 call of a woman who wanted police to remove the man who lived on her porch. Officers saw the replica handgun laying on a table through a partially open door and asked the woman about it. She told officers it was fake and picked it up.
That’s when the suspect, 26-year-old Christopher R. Laugle, grabbed a handgun from the woman’s hand and pointed it at two officers. Laugle ignored commands to drop the weapon and kept advancing towards the officers. Officers were able to subdue the suspect with a TASER.
Laugle was charged with menacing and obstructing official business.