A man who tried to bring marijuana through the security gates at the Hall of Justice and Law Enforcement Center Wednesday ended up in a tussle with deputies that sent him and a deputy to the hospital.
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said shortly before 10 a.m. the man came up to building security and put a pack of cigarettes in the basket. When a deputy looked inside, he saw what appeared to be a green leafy substance he believed was marijuana.
Paul Aksamit, the deputy in charge of building security, tried to arrest the man, and “a fight was on,” Wagner said. The man tried to run out the front door, and both he and Aksamit slid down the building’s front steps in the tussle.
At the same time, one of the other building security officers hit an emergency button that sent 30 or so deputies, who happened to be training in a room near the front of the building, pouring out of the building.
“So there was an inordinent amount of brown shirts at the front door … very quickly,” Wagner said.
Both the man and Aksamit were taken to the hospital, Aksamit for a cut above his eye and an abrasion to his wrist.
Twenty minutes after the incident, Wagner said he didn’t yet know the man’s identity because the man wasn’t giving his name. He also didn’t know why he was coming to the building.
“I think as the investigation unfolds we’ll be able to determine what happened and maybe why he reacted the way that he did,” he said.