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Off-Duty Deputy Defuses Situation With Machete-Wielding Man

Polk County Sheriff's Office

Kimberly Tuck was sworn in as a Polk County deputy by Sheriff Grady Judd in October.

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TBO.com

Published: January 30, 2009

A machete-wielding man threatening to kill others and then himself at Lakeland Regional Medical Center on Thursday night was calmed down and placed under arrest by an off-duty Polk County deputy, deputies say.

Deputy Kimberly Tuck had arrived at the hospital to visit a friend at about 6 p.m., about the same time hospital guards were having problems with a man in the emergency room bay.

Tuck called for backup, got the gun from inside her vehicle and went with a guard to the emergency room bay.

Tuck, who was sworn in as a deputy in October, moved the emergency room staffers and patients away from the suspect, 46-year-old James Donald Craft, who had armed himself with a machete. When Tuck asked him what was wrong, he "replied that he wanted to kill people and then kill himself,'' a Polk County Sheriff's Office news release states.

Craft eventually dropped the machete and was hospitalized under the Florida Mental Health Act, known as the Baker Act.

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