OCEAN CITY — After what turned out to be a tense and dicey situation, an Ocean City man was arrested on first-degree assault and other charges early Wednesday morning after first threatening to kill another man with a knife and later setting his sights on an OCPD officer who nearly had to shoot the suspect.
Around 4:15 a.m. on Wednesday, an OCPD officer responded to an apartment at 25 Philadelphia Ave. for a reported trespassing. OCPD Communications advised the officer the suspect, later identified as Bryan Taylor, 48, of Ocean City, was inside unit 18. According to the police report, it was third time during the course of the night a complaint had been filed against Taylor for trespassing at the same unit.
As the OCPD officer entered the apartment building, he heard a male voice and pounding on a door. The officer slowly walked up the stairs toward the unit and heard Taylor pounding on the door and saying over and over, “I’m going to kill you, [expletive deleted] I’m going to kill you.” The officer then heard Taylor say, “I’m going to slice you open, I have a knife and I’m going to slice you open.”
The officer entered the hallway and made his way to a nearby light switch. The hallway was dimly lit, but the officer could see Taylor pounding on the door of unit 18 still saying he was going to kill the individual inside. The officer then turned on the light switch and observed Taylor holding a fixed-blade knife with a blade roughly 12 inches long. Taylor was about 30 feet away and turned toward the officer, looked at him and said, “I’m going to kill you.”
The officer unholstered his service weapon and pointed it at Taylor, advising him to put the knife down. Taylor then began to approach the officer with the knife in his hand. The officer advised Taylor again to put the knife down, but Taylor ignored the command and continued to walk toward the officer with the knife.
According to police reports, the officer then shouted to Taylor, “stop now or I’m going to shoot you.” When Taylor was about 15 feet away, the officer shouted to him again, “if you take one more step, I’m going to shoot you.”
According to police reports, it was then that Taylor likely realized the officer was pointing a gun at him. Taylor then tossed the knife toward the officer and onto a sofa that was in the hallway. After throwing the knife, Taylor continued to walk toward the officer and continued to shout.
The officer told Taylor twice to get on the ground. Taylor then laid down on the ground between the officer and the sofa with the knife on it, and the officer warned him not to make a move for the knife or he would be shot. Taylor was then taken into custody without further incident.
When Taylor was questioned, he told police a resident inside unit 18 had slapped him twice in the face and that he went to his own room to retrieve the knife so he could kill the other man. Taylor told police he could have killed the other man in self-defense because he had been slapped in the face. Taylor was charged with first- and second-degree assault, dangerous weapon with intent to injure, trespassing and disorderly conduct.