A Tacoma police officer shot and critically injured a panhandler along a busy East Side street Saturday, after authorities said the man charged and hit the officer with a metal object. It happened about 3:15 p.m., when police said a six-year female officer on routine patrol spotted a white man in his 30s begging motorists for money at end of the Exit 134 freeway ramp off Interstate 5. After the officer got out of her patrol car at East 28th Street and Portland Avenue East to tell the man panhandling was illegal, “he went off on her,” Tacoma police spokesperson Loretta Cool said. “He looks like he’s crazy, he’s yelling,” Cool recounted the officer’s...
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