Geoffrey Aaron Stephenson

Deadly force

Police went to a to serve an emergency custody order on Geoffrey Aaron Stephenson. His mother, Judy Stephenson, said that the order was issued in part because Stephenson was suffering from depression. Stephenson walked out a back door of the house carrying a gun and wearing a tactical belt and backpack. The avid collector of antique swords wore another gun in a holster and was equipped with several boxes of ammunition, a canteen and a compass. Officer Andrew H. Pulley Jr. ordered him to drop his weapon and get on the ground. Stephenson dropped one gun and bent toward the ground, then uttered an obscenity and reached for what police later determined was a sword, and he was shot and killed.