ST. LOUIS COUNTY – St. Louis County Police said an officer shot a man who approached them with a metal pipe in a threatening way Tuesday afternoon.
Police said they responded to Butler Hill Road at Lemay Ferry Road, along the edge of Mehlville. When they arrived they found a man acting erratically in a business. The man ran out of the business and into a nearby apartment, where officers caught up with him.
That was when he approached officers with the metal pipe. Police said they tried to de-escalate the situation, but he continued to approach them. Police said the officers used two different forms of less-lethal force, but they did not work. Those less-lethal options were a stun gun and a shotgun that shoots beanbag rounds.
After the other options failed, one of the officers then shot the man, police said. Police said the man had at least one gunshot wound and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Police said he is a man in his 40s.
The officer is 37 years old and has eight years of law enforcement experience.
Kathy Metz runs the real estate business where police say the man ran through the building “acting erratically.”
She says others in the office told her they tried to talk to the man but he wasn’t making sense, ran out their back door, across the alley and jump a fence to the apartment complex where police caught up with him.
Metz says she could hear the man yelling from inside the basement of an apartment.
“He was screaming and making noise with some kind of pipe or metal,” said Metz.
Police said there are no known injuries to officers.
This is a developing story and will be updated as 5 On Your Side receives more information.