Video shows man forcing his way into Laconia police station

Law enforcement says incident like this is rare

Law enforcement says incident like this is rare

The latest breaking updates, delivered straight to your email inbox.

Law enforcement says incident like this is rare

A man is in police custody after authorities said he broke into the Laconia police station around 12:30 a.m. Thursday.

Law enforcement said an incident like this is rare.

"I’ve never experienced this in my career,” said Laconia police Chief Matt Canfield.

Police surveillance video obtained by News 9 shows the man forcing his way into the station.

Police said the man grabbed a door stopper to block the community door room shut before trying to open the medication drop-off box.

The video then shows the man trying to push open the lobby doors, eventually pulling at them repeatedly to get inside.

Canfield said two officers were there to quickly take him into custody.

“He was very agitated, he was yelling, he was screaming, gyrations with his hands -- something was definitely wrong,” Canfield said.

The man was yelling at officers, which consisted of threats that he wanted police to kill him, according to Canfield.

Canfield said having properly trained officers able to get the man into custody quickly helped the already scary situation from turning into something worse.

“Had they not been able to react to it immediately, who knows what could've happened,” Canfield said. “Certainty a potentially dangerous situation."

The chief said this was clearly a targeted incident, and the surrounding community is not at risk. But the department is looking into potential security upgrades in the building to avoid this from happening again.

“We certainly deal with agitated people pretty routinely, but for someone to come down to the police station into the lobby and to try to gain access into the building itself is kind of alarming,” Canfield said.

So far, no arrest has been made. Police said the man is currently going through a mental health evaluation. They said he could be charged with criminal trespassing and criminal mischief.