A new crime-fighting tool is credited with bringing a successful resolution to a dangerous situation.

"This is exactly why we have put so much expense and training into this," said Capt. Curt Rude.

He was speaking of the Austin Police Department's new Taser equipment and how it was needed in yet another emergency involving a mental subject.

According to the police captain, the emergency unfolded when Austin police were called to a 709 Seventh Ave. SE residence early Wednesday evening.

Neighbors reported a woman was breaking windows in her home with a meat cleaver.

Two officers were dispatched to the address and when they arrived, the officers found a 31-year-old woman, who was emotionally distraught and she was brandishing a cleaver at them.

A 21-year-old relative at the scene told officers the woman was upset after her family took a credit card from her. When the family members left the residence, the woman took a cleaver from the kitchen and went outside where she walked around the house breaking windows.

Neighbors became alarmed and called police.

The woman refused the officers' commands to put down the cleaver and surrender and went inside the house.

One officer went to the rear door of the house, while the other approached the residence from the front.

Inside the home, the woman was still upset and agitated. She refused the officers' commands to drop the cleaver and a stalemate ensued.

Finally, the officers were forced to act.

One of them armed with a new Taser gun shot the woman in the upper right shoulder area with an electrically-charged ball of darts.

The woman fell to the floor, dropping the cleaver. She was also Maced and taken into custody. No one was injured.

The woman was transported first to the Austin-Mower County Law Enforcement Center for questioning and then taken to the stress center at Austin Medical Center.

The police captain said it was another example of how valuable the Taser equipment can be to officers.

The Taser guns are in cars patrolling each quadrant of the city so they can be easily accessed by officers encountering emergencies meriting criteria for their use.

Rude was certified for their operation a year ago and is now teaching all members of the department how to use them safely.

The Mower County Sheriff's Department also has the crime-fighting tool.

Rude cited three other examples all involving suicidal subjects, who threatened to take their own lives, including two who brandished guns and another who stuck his head outside a window and challenged police to shoot him.

"The Taser gives an electrical jolt lasting five seconds which is just enough to override the involuntary muscles. It's enough to normally allow an officer to subdue a person and take them into custody without hurting themselves or the officer," Rude said.

The Taser looks just like a handgun. As Rude pulled the trigger in a demonstration, the barrel of the gun crackled alive with the sound of electricity. The bluish light dancing like lightning between the two contact points was proof enough, the Taser gun could be used in close-quarters, too.

Rude said the items were purchased with money appropriated by the Austin City Council for the police department's budget needs.

He said the officers were trained not to use the device in either gun or hand-held form in certain areas of the body, such as genitalia.

All in all, the close call with a meat cleaver wielding mental subject left the police captain pleased with his officers' performance.

"It worked the way it was supposed to work," he said.

Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by e-mail at :mailto:lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com