A witness recorded cellphone video of police shooting a man with a hatchet in downtown Brockton, Massachusetts.
The shooting happened around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in the area of 1 Main St. The man had gone into a cellphone store and was acting irrationally, according to Acting Mayor Moises Rodrigues.
An employee at the store said the man was upset about returning a phone.
"He pulled out a hatchet and hit the credit card machine," the employee said.
That worker hit the panic button.
"I grabbed the machete that we have, to try and scare him off, but he didn't care," the employee said. "Mine was bigger than his and he just challenged me to come outside."
The employee ran out to wave down police from an outside funeral detail.
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"He's really angry, jumps up and down twice, like, provoking police, and starts rushing towards police," the employee said. "I did hear police say, 'Put your weapon down, put your weapon down, put your weapon down.'"
"He wasn't going down, so the other officer who felt he wasn't being threatened thought, 'let's do it this way,' and that didn't work," Rodrigues said.
The man who was shot was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital before being transferred to a hospital in the Boston area. Authorities said he underwent surgery, but his condition wasn't immediately clear.
State police are investigating whether officers were justified in their response.
"We basically try not to investigate our own just to make sure it's done in an appropriate way and to make sure it's as transparent as possible," Rodrigues said.
