A handyman in an East Oakland neighborhood was shot by a female police officer at Tolin's Liquor Store Saturday night after (possibly drunkenly) harassing other customers and refusing to drop his "weapon," which in this case was a 12-inch hatchet. Neighbors say the man, Brownie Polk, always carried tools and was just working on a roofing job that day, and he simply raised the hatchet over his head when the policewoman drew her gun at him. While one witness says he was moving to walk out the door at the time the officer fired three shots at him, the officer claims she fired because he was threatening her and refused to drop his hatchet and that he had moved "inside a threshold area where a suspect can kill an officer if they have a stabbing instrument." Surveillance video shows the man was indeed holding his hatchet, and Oakland police are using this to defend the officer, who's only been on the force for 18 months.

Unfortunately for the hatchet-related news hounds among us, the video is not being released to the public at this time.