By EMS1 Staff
PORTLAND, Ore. — Police were forced to fire at and kill a man in a hospital parking lot Sunday night when he charged at them with a black object in his hand .
Police showed a video shot by a bystander during a news conference, that revealed Merle Hatch, 50, screaming across the parking lot at officers, threatening to come at them and eventually charging them.
What police believed to be a gun in his hand was a phone handset that the suspect had taken from the hospital, where he was a patient, according to KATU. He broke the handset in half—which police believe he did to simulate a handgun.
As Hatch ran toward officers, an officer could be heard yelling, “Stop! Hands up!”
Hatch yelled back, “One, two, three!”
Police opened fire when Hatch was about 40 feet away, according to the article.
Hatch was serving a 10-year sentence at a federal corrections institution in Oregon after being convicted in a 2004 bank robbery. Sources said Hatch was given a plane ticket and sent to a halfway house in Colorado in Feb. but he never showed up.
Portland police said Hatch was a career criminal with arrests in California, Arizona and Colorado on a variety of charges that included homicide, theft, burglary and bank robbery.