DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – A South Florida police department is thanking their training for saving a man's life while responding to a crisis call over the weekend.
Video taken by a witness showed a young man running through the streets of Delray Beach on Saturday. Residents automatically thought the man was on drugs.
Delray Beach police officers quickly arrived at the scene, surrounded him and tried to get him out of the street safely, realizing they could only do so by handcuffing him.
"He wasn't harmed, the officers weren't harmed, the community wasn't harmed. That man was taken into custody in as about as text book of a situation as you could want," Delray Beach police spokesman Jeff Messer said.
The man was taken to a mental health facility to be treated for PTSD. Police said the man is a war veteran and had heard a loud noise which spooked him. They said he was not on drugs.
A couple of days before the incident, Delray Beach police officers had undergone training by the Broward Sheriff's Office on how to deal with people exhibiting erratic behaviors like the kind associated with the drug "flakka," which witnesses originally thought the man was using.
Another bizarre incident was reported Saturday in Boca Raton.
In that case, police had a run-in with a naked runner, who was zipping through traffic. They said the man was also seemingly in a state of what they call "excited delirium."
He, too, was taken away for his safety.
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