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911 calls released in connection to Martin County deputy-involved shooting

Posted at 8:27 PM, Jan 23, 2019
and last updated 2019-01-23 20:27:29-05

MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — 911 calls are giving us a better look into the mental state of a man Martin County deputies say ran at them with scissors in a "stabbing motion."

Warren Pugh is currently in the hospital.

Deputies say he faces multiple charges once he's out.

Records show Warren Pugh has been arrested and charged in the past for battery on a law enforcement officer and battery on a public official.

According to 911 calls, his family says he suffers from mental illness.

A week before Martin County deputies say Warren Pugh ran at them with scissors, Pugh's mother's boyfriend called 911 to get him out of his house in Stuart.

"I did not want to be alone in my home with this guy and then it could get ugly," said the caller.

The boyfriend explained he had asked Pugh to leave before and woke up to find Pugh on his laundry room floor.

"He's been in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Sometimes when he gets off his medication things go awry."

Pugh was given a trespass warning but came back on Monday.

"I’m a block down the street and I’m watching because I don’t want him to run," said his mother's boyfriend.

And apparently a few times before that, according to his 911 call.

"He’ll come in the middle of the night like I said. He has defecated in the backyard the past 3 and 4 days."

When Martin County deputies found Pugh, they said they told him they needed to talk to him, but he responded saying "no I'm not doing this." According to the report, he then ran at deputies "with what appeared to be a knife" in an "attempt at a stab motion." That's when investigators say Deputy William Baker Junior fired at Pugh.

They later found he was holding scissors.

Deputy Baker is on paid administrative leave.

This past November, also in Martin County, Pugh was arrested and charged with resisting a law enforcement officer without violence.