Over a year ago Edward Nickel was arrested from his home for aggravated assault. The former Desert Ridge resident was convicted just this last week of three counts of aggravated assault as a result of his arrest.
Nickel’s wife told police that he thought Nickel was suicidal. Officers were called to their home and were able to enter the resident at the permission of Nickel’s wife.
Upon entering, Nickels started to pull away from them. He went back to his bedroom and ended up pulling out a weapon.
The police thought they needed to fire a Taser, so they fired the Taser along with nine gunshots. But none of them hit Nickel. The police decided to back off and call in the SWAT team.
Nickel eventually surrendered and has been in jail ever since this incident. Nickel argues that he didn’t know that the men in his house were police officers. Police claim they were confused as to whether or not Nickel had shot at them.
It was not until a forensic unit did some further investigation that it was determined that the police fired first and that Nickel never fired any shot.
These details do not matter since pulling out a weapon is enough of a threat to police officers. Two of the counts Nikel received were because he had put the officers in a “reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury.”
The third count against him was because he had touched one of the officers showing an intention to injure him.
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