He turned ‘pretty much everything he picked up into a weapon’

EDMONDS — An Everett man broke into a neighbor’s motel room with a crowbar, tore up a stove, a toilet and a water heater in his own room and spent two hours threatening to kill Edmonds police with axes on Tuesday.

Callers said the man had burst into the neighbor’s room armed and uninvited around 6:30 a.m. at a motel in the 23900 block of Highway 99, Edmonds Sgt. Shane Hawley said. He reportedly threatened to kill people.

Officers found the man, 35, had retreated to his first-floor room. He barricaded the door. Over the next two hours he destroyed the place, police said. He hurled a stove and a water heater through the window and into the parking lot; ripped up the toilet and tossed chunks of porcelain at officers; and threw hardware tools with enough force to dent a police shield that’s designed to stop bullets.

“He managed to turn pretty much everything he picked up into a weapon,” Hawley said.

The man shouted to the police that he’d cut their necks. The threat was delivered while holding one of three axes in the room. He stripped his clothes. Police were concerned he was overheating from a medical emergency, possibly an overdose.

A crisis negotiator couldn’t convince him to surrender.

Around 8:30 a.m., police used rubber projectiles to subdue the man. He was taken to a local hospital for self-inflicted cuts. His injuries from the projectiles weren’t life-threatening. Police were investigating what led up to the incident.

The man was expected to be booked into jail for investigation of first-degree burglary, felony harassment, felony assault of a police officer and malicious mischief.

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.