BALTIMORE – A Baltimore police officer may have saved a life by de-escalating a situation in which a knife-wielding man appeared to be trying to provoke police into shooting him.
Body camera footage first obtained by WBFF-TV shows Officer Angel Villaronga starting a conversation with the man as he pleaded with officers to shoot him, saying that he is holding a knife and is a "threat."
Villaronga got the man to open up about a domestic situation and eventually convinced him to peacefully surrender. The tense situation took place in September.
Villaronga says he relied on his training as well as personal experience. As a teenager, he says he watched his father threaten to jump from a building, but convinced him to change his mind with the help of officers.
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