In Altona, New York a man is dead after police say he threatened Clinton County deputies with a knife before a deputy shot and killed the suspect.
Two Clinton County Sheriff deputies were trying to pick up Dusty Clark for failing to appear in court on for charges of unlicensed operation and unsafe passing
The deputies arrived at 9 Bloomer Street Sunday afternoon with an arrest warrant for Clark but the sheriff's department says Clark had no intention of cooperating with them.
"The subject then indicated he was not going to leave with them. That that was not going to happen," Clinton County Sheriff David Favro said.
Sheriff Favro says Clark turned and picked up a knife in his kitchen and wielded it threateningly toward the deputies. Police say one of the deputies warned Clark four times to stand down before firing a taser at him. But it didn't help, possibly because the two taser probes didn't hit Clark.
"We can clearly establish that one of them did but the other one did not," Sheriff Favro said.
Police are looking into why the taser didn't work. That includes viewing the video from the taser gun which they say shows a clear indication of danger for the deputies because of the knife Clark was holding.
"On the taser video we saw it was clearly capable of causing death," Sheriff Favro said.
The sheriff says with the deputy's back against a kitchen cabinet and the taser not working the deputy then pulled out his gun. He warned Clark one more time before shooting him two or three times in the chest and killing him.
"The outcome, as unfortunate as it is, could have been much, much worse," Sheriff Favro said.
Sheriff Favro says that he does not believe the two deputies involved, identified as Andrew Bertrand and Jason Winters, did not act "out of character" and followed their training practice.
Favro also said they did not have an arrest record for Clark or any information that would lead them to believe he was violent.
That's how his former employer Rhonda Van Etten remembers him. Clark worked for her and her husband at Sage Hill Custom Construction for two years. She says he was a gentle person who volunteered at a local church and was someone who was a role model to her children.
She says he was not the kind of person who would threaten police with a knife.
"We as his friends want answers. I'm sure his family wants answers.
"And it's very disturbing. We've lost a lot of sleep. We haven't slept we've just been playing everything over in our mind and trying to, you know, figure out what could have happened," Van Etten said.
New York state police will help in investigating the deadly shooting.
The two Clinton County deputies involved in the shooting were identified as Andrew Bertrand and Jason Winters.
