UPDATE: Edited and condensed scanner audio from around the time of the incident below:
Original Post: Arcata Police Department press release:
On May 2, 2015, at about 2:24 PM, police officers from the Arcata Police Department responded to the report of a man vandalizing a vehicle with a hatchet in the 700 block of Bayside Road.
Two witnesses saw a man armed with a hatchet prowling around an apartment complex, trying apartment and vehicle doors, and also looking in apartment windows. The man reportedly broke a car window with the hatchet.
When officers arrived on scene they attempted to contact the man who was still in possession of the hatchet. While an officer was giving orders to drop the hatchet, the man raised and threw the hatchet at the police officer. The officer discharged one round from his firearm. The man was not struck by the round. The man then ran away from the officers.
Officers pursued him on foot and after a brief chase he surrendered and was taken into custody without further incident.
The man, 34-year-old Matthew Adam Lavallee, of Arcata, was transported to the Mad River Community Hospital where he was medically cleared for jail as a precaution. Lavallee was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for 245(c) PC - Assault With a Deadly Weapon Upon a Peace Officer, 148(a)(1) PC - Resisting a Peace Officer, and 549(B)(1) PC - Vandalism.
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