It was an emotional reunion for 39-year-old David Bundy when he got to thank the North Carolina cop who stopped him from taking his life.
Roanoke Rapids Police Officer Jamie Hardy went to Bundy’s house on July 27 after receiving a 911 call that the man inside wanted to harm himself. Bundy reportedly told the dispatcher that he was “hearing voices after smoking marijuana and not taking some of his prescribed medications.”
The confrontation with Bundy outside his house was captured on Hardy’s department-issued body camera. As the officer starts to speak with him, Bundy is seen reaching for something in his back pocket. The video shows Hardy clamping down on Bundy’s arms while speaking calmly to him, WRAL reported.
It was a knife in Bundy’s pocket. Bundy refused to let go of it, saying he was going to use it to cut himself.
“I don’t want you to hurt me, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself either. Don’t take that knife out,” Hardy told him. “Listen, I got a little kid at home, and I want to go home to him, OK? And I don’t want nothing bad to happen to you. That’s why I’m here.”
When Hardy watched the video back during an interview with WRAL, he said his focus was on the safety of the situation. “I was debating, am I going to have to let him go? Am I going to have to use deadly force?”
Eventually the officer wrestled Bundy to the ground, and paramedics who arrived on the scene got the knife away from him. The two men met for the first time in a very emotional reunion Thursday, which Bundy’s mother also attended. An emotional, but very grateful Bundy apologized to the officer for the tense encounter, and said he would like nothing more than to be friends with Hardy.
“If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today,” Bundy said, adding that he’s back on his medications. “He saved my life.” His mother, in tears, hugged Hardy, and thanked him for stopping her son from hurting himself.
The police chief said Hardy handled the situation as he was trained to do and avoided a situation that could’ve ended with the officer using deadly force.
