By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — A despondent man who was holding a knife to his own throat was talked out of doing further harm to himself by Pawtucket Police officers in a dramatic encounter at the Galego Court housing complex on Wednesday afternoon.

According to Pawtucket Police Lt. Roberto DaSilva, police first received a call from a Pawtucket Housing Authority employee who discovered what he thought might have been a dead man inside the bedroom of a first floor apartment at 124 Leonard Jenard Drive.
The employee had been accompanying a constable during an eviction proceeding in what had appeared to be an unoccupied apartment at around 1:12 p.m.  DaSilva said the employee had opened a bedroom door and saw the man lying in a bed with a knife sticking out of his neck, and quickly phoned police, reporting either a stabbing victim or possible deceased person.
DaSilva said that when Patrol Officers Jared Boudreault and Edward Berube arrived at the apartment,  they saw a male lying on the bed with a knife stuck partially in his neck. When the two officers approached the bed, the man suddenly sat up, with the knife hanging from his throat. According to police, the man looked very disoriented and confused and the knife dropped into his lap.
The officers said the man then picked up the knife, held it in a threatening manner, and began waving it at them. He also reportedly stated “You will have to shoot me. I have nothing to live for.”
The officers said that for their own safety, they drew their weapons and pointed them at the man.
They said he continued to point the knife at them and then hold the knife back to his own throat. They said he appeared to be pushing the knife deeper into his throat, and said they could see several other stab wounds to his neck which he had apparently inflicted upon himself.
DaSilva said that he and Officer Stephen Ricco then arrived on the scene and the officers began speaking to the man. After a few more minutes of dialogue, they persuaded him to drop the knife to the floor. He did so, and the police also put away their weapons.
The man was then escorted peacefully out of the apartment to a waiting ambulence. He was transported to the Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket for an evaluation, DaSilva said. He declined to identify the man.
DaSilva said he wished to credit Officers Ricco, Boudreault and Berube for their actions in diffusing a volatile and potentially dangerous situation.