Arizona cops open fire on SUV with kids inside to protect them from knife-wielding dad

Police in Arizona opened fire on a vehicle with two young children inside to protect them from their knife-wielding father.

Officers were called about 6 p.m. Monday to an apartment complex in Mesa, where the armed man was reportedly acting irrationally.

They found the man standing outside an SUV holding the knife and shot him twice with a beanbag shotgun, but police said he failed to comply with orders to drop his weapon.

Police said the man, whose name was not released, moved toward the rear of the SUV, opened a back passenger door and lunged into the vehicle.

An officer then noticed two small children in the back seat, so he fired his service weapon at the man.

"You see small children, then you've got somebody who is acting in this irrational manner," said Detective Steve Barry, a police spokesman. "It elevates things."

The man remained uncooperative after he was shot and wounded, and officers pulled him from the SUV and shocked him with a Taser.

They managed to subdue the man and place him in handcuffs.

Police then discovered the man’s wife was in the driver’s seat of the SUV, along with the couple’s 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.

The woman and children were not injured, and the man was hospitalized for treatment of at least one gunshot wound.

No officers were injured in the incident.

Watch this video report posted online by KTVK-TV: