SWAT Team Called on Sleeping Homeless Man
MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida sheriff reportedly called in the SWAT team last Thursday to investigate reports that a belligerent man had broken into a church. Using the opportunity to deploy its paramilitary force, the armed response unit included an armored personnel carrier and a helicopter.
Dozens of police officers arrived on the scene only to find a sleeping man with some food and a liquor bottle filled with wine.
Manatee County sheriff’s spokesman Dave Bristow explained that the tipster who called the police “…saw what they thought could be a weapon and they became alarmed and law enforcement got involved.”
The man found at the Bridge Church was detained by police under the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, commonly known as the Baker Act, but was later released and not charged with a crime.
