Officers responded to a disturbance at a downtown hotel where a man was waving a canister of butane lighter fluid. Last night just shortly after 9:00 p.m., an officer responded to a disturbance call at the Fairmount Olympic Hotel, 411 University Street. Hotel Security believed the subject was either drunk or high and asked him to leave, but the man refused. He was quite agitated and at one point was waving around a can of butane lighter fluid.
When the officer called for another unit, the man began to walk away, ignoring the officer’s commands to stop. The officer followed the subject into the 1200 block of 3rd Ave, where he climbed atop a covered bus shelter and began to rant about the state of his life. The block was shut down to traffic, and when spectators began engaging the man in a negative way, pedestrians were also cleared from the block.
After about 25 minutes of talking with the subject, he agreed to come down on his own and said that he would get into the patrol car. He did so, and was transported to HMC for an involuntary Mental Health Evaluation.
The street was reopened.