CLARKESVILLE — The incident report reads like the script for an episode of a television show, but it’s not – it happened near Mt. Airy Wednesday morning.
At 6:04 a.m., Habersham County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to 3923 Dicks Hill Parkway in Mt. Airy about a vehicle that had struck a chicken house then left the scene.
When the responding deputy arrived, the owner of the chicken house near Welcome Home Road showed them the damage to the working structure, then pointed them to where the pickup truck was located. The owner also gave them the name of the man who was driving, Joshua Libby.
Deputies then attempted to contact Libby at his home at 3990 Dicks Hill Parkway, but Libby refused to come to the door.
“Joshua really wouldn’t make contact with them,” Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Wurtz said. “He was kind of not making a lot of sense – waving around a knife in a slashing motion toward them, and had a Bible in his hand.”
After several failed attempts to communicate with Libby, he disappeared from the upstairs of the home into the basement.
“Deputies were able to obtain an arrest warrant on Libby for criminal damage to property,” Wurtz said. “Once they got to the basement, Libby still wouldn’t make contact with them verbally … still had the knife in his hand, still had the Bible in his hand, kind of still making slashing motions toward them and he wouldn’t comply with anything they were saying.”
That’s when some of the department’s newer equipment and training came into play.
“At that point, they reached out to the patrol commander,” Wurtz said. “The patrol commander had deputies respond out there with some less lethal munitions … in an attempt to make contact with him without having to go to a lethal force or deadly force type issue.”
Wurtz said deputies entered the basement of the home at 7:41 a.m.
“We were able to make some verbal contact with him and some visual contact with him,” Wurtz said. “As soon as we made visual contact with him, he still had one hand behind his back, was kind of showing us the other hand, and was still refusing to comply with any of our orders, which were, ‘Come out! Let me see your hands! Come out here to us!’”
That’s when deputies employed a newer tool that resembles an enhanced paintball gun, but rather fires pepper balls.
“At that point, he was struck with several different rounds of pepper ball in the upper body area,” Wurtz said. “That pepper ball deploys several different kinds of munitions in it. Mostly what we put through it is a pepper powder.”
Wurtz described the pepper powder as “baby powder fine”, but pepper, produced in a laboratory.
While running from one side of the room to the other, Libby would pass the doorway, making slashing motions at deputies, Wurtz said.
Wurtz described that knife as an eight- to 12-inch kitchen filet knife, saying Libby refused repeated commands to come out, walk toward deputies, etc., despite being hit with pepper balls.
Deputies also saturated the room where Libby was concealed, firing pepper balls at the ceiling so the dust would fall on and around him in an attempt to force him out of the room.
There were only two points of entry/exit from the basement, plus a window beside the door, and deputies were between Libby and those, Wurtz said.
When pepper balls were not as effective as hoped, deputies utilized another less lethal tactic.
“We had another deputy that was there with the less lethal shotgun, which is that orange shotgun,” Wurtz said. “He had what we call beanbag rounds in it. After several different times of him jumping back and forth in the doorway, we were able to hit him with a beanbag round in the back of the calf … while he was running across.”
At that point, he threw the knife to the other side, sat down and surrendered.
“We were able to take him into custody without having to use any kind of lethal force,” Wurtz said. “If we didn’t have these types of tools, we wouldn’t have been able to resolve it like that I don’t think – or it could have been a lot different at least.”
One of the deputies checked Libby at the scene and he tested positive for alcohol, Wurtz said.
“What I wanted to point out is we were able to use several different options that we have now at the sheriff’s office to deescalate the whole situation and turn it to a situation where all we were doing is taking this guy to jail with minimal injuries,” Wurtz said. “Yes, he’s got some bruising. That’s expected with this type of force that we use, but it could have been a lot worse had we not had these tools.”
The sheriff’s office has been using this type less lethal equipment for a couple of years now, and just did its annual training on the pepper ball munitions two weeks ago and the annual training on the less lethal shotgun about a month ago, Wurtz said.
Wurtz said unlike a Special Response Team callout, where a number of deputies and officers are activated, the patrol division is equipped to handle incidents like the one Wednesday morning.
“Actually, what we have set up currently is each road lieutenant has a pepper ball launcher,” Wurtz said. “Each road lieutenant and each road sergeant has a less lethal shotgun currently.”
Asked how he would rate the day and the outcome of the situation, Wurtz said, “A 10 – everybody went home, nobody got hurt. The injuries to the suspect were minimal. He didn’t have to go to the hospital.”
Joshua Joseph Libby initially was booked on the criminal damage to property charge from the wreck, but jail records show he now is charged with obstruction or hindering law enforcement officers, driving under the influence, reckless driving, as well as a probation violation.
Libby also will be having a mental evaluation to determine what kind of needs he has in that area, Wurtz said.
Asked whether Libby gave a reason for carrying the Bible, Wurtz said he did not, nor did Libby indicate whether he was expecting officers to end his life.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2018/5/674064/bible-knife-wielding-man-keeps-habersham-deputies-at-bay