A man menaced Nassau County Police Highway Patrol officers with knives before being subdued at gunpoint Friday in a scene that played out next to the Long Island Expressway during rush hour.
No one was hurt, Nassau police spokesman Det. Lt. Kevin Smith said.
Smith said police received 911 calls regarding a “”disturbance in a car”” parked along the westbound Long Island Expressway near Exit 39, Glen Cove Road in Old Westbury at 7:30 a.m.
Police first believed the man may have had a hostage, but Smith said officers arrived to find him alone, acting erratically near his blue pickup truck.
Smith said the man, identified only as a Suffolk resident, menaced the two officers who responded to the scene. Those officers drew their service weapons on the man and subdued him without incident.
Police called the man “”apparently emotionally disturbed.”” He was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow for psychiatric evaluation, Smith said.
He faces arrest on charges of menacing a police officer when he is released from the medical center, Smith said.
The scene is not far from where highway patrol officer Michael J. Califano, 44, of Wantagh, was killed Feb. 4 while making a traffic stop. Califano, a 12-year veteran of the force, was killed when his cruiser was struck by a truck driver who police said had fallen asleep at the wheel.