Police, firefighters and ambulance attendants stabilize a man on a stretcher before transporting him to a local hospital for observation after the man fought with police on 16th Avenue Southwest in White Center about 6 p.m. Tuesday evening. Police suspect the man was under the influence of drugs and said he was in a state of "excited delirium."
When a King County Sheriff's deputy put out the call to fellow officers for assistance, it was because he was in a street fight with man who had been threatening passersby and challenging them to fight.
The deputy had been looking for the man near White Center Fieldhouse park earlier when he learned the man had made his way to busy 16th Avenue Southwest, the main street that runs through White Center. The deputy found the man near 106th and 16th Southwest in the street.
When the deputy confronted the man, according to witnesses at a nearby coffee shop, the fight began. The officer radioed for help, telling the dispatcher that he was dealing with a subject in a state of "excited delirium.”
Deputies from the Sheriff's department in Burien rushed to the scene along with Burien Police and at least six police vehicles and one fire truck responded to the scene. It took several officers to finally subdue the man after Officer Brown had him on the ground, according to Sgt. J.R. Hall, incident commander.
Sgt. Hall said people in a state of excited delirium are "like a crazy animal and have no idea what is going on." The subject was not wearing a shirt despite a deep drop in air temperature in the afternoon.
Witnesses said they have seen the man many times before wandering the neighborhood and acting aggressively toward others. After the man was subdued, he was taken to a hospital in an ambulance for treatment.
