In light of the recent terror attacks sweeping the nation, law enforcement has been operating on high alert.
When the police of Kiryat Gat received a report on Sunday afternoon that a man in Paz Park, in Kiryat Gat, was carrying a knife, their worst fears were realized.
Imagining a terror attack, they rushed to the scene, only to find a man in his 60s, wandering around with a knife in his hand.
All seemed well, until the man started to approach the police, brandishing the knife.
Hearts in their mouths, the police called for him to stop, but the man moved faster.
In a split-second decision, a policeman shot him in the leg, wounding and incapacitating the armed assailant.
Except that the armed assailant, an elderly man, is well-known to the police, and is mentally ill.
The police are investigating the source of the incident.
In another example of alleged police overreaction, officers recently entered a home in Yitzhar, and arrested the family's 15 year-old son.
The police did not demonstrate any evidence, did not allow the boy's father to accompany him, and informed the parents that they were bringing him to a re-education camp in the south of Israel.
Only when the courts clarified that the police were operating without clear evidence, and hadn't provided the boy with a legal advocate, was his arrest overturned.
They have since given the boy a distancing order from Judea and Samaria.