Boston police on Tuesday afternoon fired a “less than lethal” bean bag round at a knife-wielding man from Brockton who now faces two charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of resisting arrest, authorities said.
Carmen Polito, 39, is expected to be arraigned Wednesday in Boston Municipal Court, Officer Stephen McNulty, a Boston police spokesman, said Tuesday night.
Polito was also wanted on two warrants issued in Cambridge District Court, for charges of willful malicious destruction of property, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a police officer, and carrying a dangerous weapon, McNulty said.
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Tuesday’s confrontation occurred around 1:29 p.m. in the area of 393 Massachusetts Ave., McNulty said. The crime scene was located about 100 feet from the corner of Huntington Avenue and Mass. Ave., near Symphony Hall and Horticulture Hall.
Police said an officer and Polito were taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The officer taken to the hospital wasn’t named.
McNulty said an investigation is ongoing.
Erin Serino, a Boston EMS spokesperson, said via e-mail that “multiple units from Boston EMS responded to the incident at 393 Massachusetts Ave shortly after 1:30 p.m. today. Two patients were transported by basic life support ambulance to area hospitals. We are unable to comment further on the nature of the incident or additional details about the patients due to patient privacy rules.”
At the scene, several Northeastern students living at the nearby Midtown Hotel witnessed the incident.
Abigail Klinge, a Northeastern freshman, said outside of the hotel on Huntington Avenue that she saw police confront the suspect from her window.
“We were sitting up in our dorm room, and the police started surrounding a man who had a knife,” she said. “And they were screaming, ‘Drop the knife, drop the knife.’ Then they fired one beanbag round at him, which he recoiled from pretty fast.”
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Klinge and her roommate saw the suspect sprint down Huntington toward Mass. Avenue
“They shot another beanbag round at him in the intersection, and he was down,” Klinge said. She estimated it took about 10 men to fully restrain him.
Ishaan Desai, also a freshman at Northeastern, said he heard sirens from his room and saw several police cars. He also saw the suspect running from the police.
“The guy with the knife was like trying to run away — he was like moving backwards,” he said.
Nick Bandis, another Northeastern freshman, said he was with a friend when he saw the suspect on a bicycle and police exiting their vehicle. He said he and his friend ran because they didn’t know what was happening.
“I was like really scared,” Bandis said. “I couldn’t think straight.”
Globe correspondent Jeremy C. Fox contributed to this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Matt Yan can be reached at matt.yan@globe.com. Follow him @matt_yan12.