Two Baltimore police officers shot and critically wounded a man this morning in Northeast Baltimore who apparently was waving a spatula. Police initially said the officers thought the man was charging them with an edged weapon.

Details are still a bit murky, but cops got a call for a mental patient in the 2400 block of Bridgehampton Drive and said that paramedics approached him first and ran when he emerged with a shiny object in his hand. Police then approached and a department spokesman said they shot him when he refused to put the object down. Police later said the man charged at the officers and it was dark, so it was difficult for them to determine what he had in his hand.

It's unclear as of this moment what exactly the paramedics and the officers saw the man holding. Police told us this morningt that the man called police asking for his mother and a member of the clergy and that he might have been trying to commit what is known as "suicide by cop."

Hopefully, more details will emerge later in the day. This morning's shooting was the 13th involving a city officer this year, compared with 20 in 2008 and 33 in 2007.

Police do have a variety of non-lethal weapons they can use to try and difuse a situation without or before resorting to their guns. But each circunstance is unique and doesn't always lend itself to using either a Taser or in some cases, though not every cop carries one, a gun that shoots a bean bag to disable a suspect.

Back in 1999, a Baltimore police officer shot and killed a man after he mistook a cell phone for a gun. But in that case, officers had been searching for the man who had failed to appear for a detention hearing in federal court on a drug case. The officers chased him through alleys in East Baltimore and reported that several times the man stopped and made a gesture as if he had a gun. The officer had shot at him during the chase but missed.

A few minutes later, police said he made the same move on a street and the officer fired and hit him three times, killing him. When they reached him lying on the street, he had a cell phone, not a gun, in his hand. The shooting was ruled justified.