It was a battle between one police officer and a man out of control, and it was all caught on tape.
"And then boom, boom, boom -- yelling, yelling, yelling -- boom, boom, boom and I go to the balcony and he's tussling with two guys," said eyewitness Jackson Sanders.
As an officer tried to subdue a man at the Driftwood Manor Apartments in West Raleigh, Sanders recorded the scene from his balcony with his cell phone.
"When you're flailing and you're wild like that, he has to be subdued ASAP to eliminate other potential problems," said Sanders.
That's where Shane St. Pierre comes in. The air conditioning contractor sprung into action when he saw a single officer struggling.
"It seems like it was at least three to four or five minutes just trying to hold him down because the man was by himself. He didn't have back up," said St. Pierre. "Fear never set in. I don't know if that's wise or not, but I just saw somebody that needed help."
"Somebody was struck with the rock when he came down stairs," said Sanders.
Eyewitnesses say the whole thing started when the man, who'd been known to talk to himself and dumpster dive, threw a huge rock at a maintenance worker in the stairwell upset over noise from renovations.
That's when neighbors called police.
"I said it wasn't that big of deal, but when you think about the fact that an officer's in a struggle with somebody who is obviously out of his mind, the potential of getting a gun, the potential of shooting innocent people," said St. Pierre. "I just want to thank the Lord that every that everybody was safe, because it's nothing but the grace of God."
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