Their second response in a little more than a month to a woman with self-destructive tendencies prompts Manchester police to employ their newest method of defusing situations without gunfire - a Conductive Energy Device (CED), or Taser.

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Police late Wednesday said that when officers arrived in the Pine Lake Park section, they encountered the 27-year-old already beset with slashes she inflicted with a kitchen knife.

Ignoring repeated orders from officers, she grabbed a pair of scissors and began opening new wounds, police said. That's when one of the officers activated the CED, preventing further damage and allowing them to transfer her to hospitalization.

Police said that she is being given psychological evaluations as well as medical care.

"The use of the Conducted Energy Device by our officer caused a dangerous situation to be resolved, quickly and without causing further injury to the subject", said Chief Lisa Parker.

Manchester safety officials bought the devices in light of what they determined to be an increasing number of "unpredictable and often dangerous encounters," especially a spike in calls related mental health and emotional disturbances.

Police pegged the rise in mental-health-related calls at 61 percent in four years, from 298 responses in 2012 to 481 in 2016.

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