Manchester Police release video of officers deescalating situation of woman with knife

Manchester Township Police have released dash cam video footage of how they safely deescalated a situation where a Whiting woman had stabbed a car and was carrying a large knife down a road in the Cedar Glen Lakes section on Monday.

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Police responded to the Nevada Drive and Louisiana Way area on Monday after getting a call about a woman "actively stabbing the hood of an occupied vehicle."

As seen and heard in the released video by Manchester Police, Patrolman Anthony 'Tony' Iliadis was heading towards Arizona Drive when he was approached by a woman who said "she stabbed my car, she's got a knife."

As he turned the corner, Patrolman Iliadis spotted 74-year old Margaret Dennis wearing a black and white checkered robe walking down the street with a knife in her right hand.

He said hello a couple times then got out of the patrol car and started walking towards her saying, "mam, police, hello, hi, how are you?"

"I'm okay," Dennis said.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Yes," Dennis said.

"Can you drop the knife?"

"I have a sister..." Dennis said as she started walking towards Offier Iliadis.

"Can you drop the knife?"

"Can you drop the knife? Drop the knife. It's okay. My name's Tony, can I talk to you, can you please drop the knife?"

"No, I won't drop the knife, I'm going to use it on my sister. I'm going to do what she did to me at my house."

She then started walking away and Officer Iliadis then followed after her asking her for her name in an effort to keep the conversation going.

"What you want my name for?"

He said he wanted to talk to her, she said "alright, talk to me."

"What's going on, why are you upset with her?"

"I do what I need to do outside and all the commotion starts in the house..."

She then filled him in on what happened.

"I'm going to help you, we can figure this out, okay?"

As he said this, Patrolman Arthur Cronk was walking up behind Dennis and then grabbed the knife from her arm without any injuries.

Manchester Police Chief Lisa Parker acknowledged the work by Officers Iliadis and Cronk saying that de-escalation training works.

“This is the result of training and experience coming together and ending in a successful outcome," Chief Parker said in a statement.

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