Life Saving Incident

On August 17, 1966, Sergeant Eugene Skinner responded to a call of a woman with a knife threatening her husband and a female friend. Officers arrived to find a distraught 20-year-old woman holding a butcher knife to the throat of her 2-year-old son. When the woman saw Sergeant Skinner she told him, "go away or I will kill him" as she pointed to the baby. As the woman paced back and forth between the living room and kitchen, Sergeant Skinner calmly spoke to her as he attempted to get her to drop the knife. At one point during the 90 minute standoff the woman told Sergeant Skinner, "no one loved her." Sergeant Skinner responded by complimenting the woman. He later recounted, "I told her a lot of things. Anything I could to get her to drop the knife. I talked and talked until I could talk no more." The standoff ended when Skinner told the woman he loved her and she sat down in a chair and dropped the knife. Officers quickly took the woman into custody and rescued the child who was unharmed. The woman was remanded to the county hospital for a mental evaluation. The child was placed in the custody of his father. Sergeant Skinner later said the incident was touch and go as to whether or not he would have to shoot the woman to save the child. "It was one of the most terrible experiences I have ever had as a police officer."