Armed with assault rifle, Pierce County man prepares to battle 'lizard people'

PARKLAND, Wash. -- A 55-year-old Eatonville man armed himself with an AK-47 and a pistol over the weekend to battle "the lizard people," the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said.

The man told law enforcement that President Trump had called to warn him.

The man ended up being sent to a hospital for treatment and a mental health evaluation.

Just after 8 p.m. Saturday, a witness called 911 to report a white Jeep Cherokee was stopped at 108th Street South and Pacific Avenue South in Parkland.

A state trooper later reported that a man got out of the Cherokee was was waving around an AK-47 and a pistol.

A number of troopers and deputies converged. The man put the guns back in the car. He was ordered to the ground, where he began to scream about "sending in the news" and "the lizard people," the Sheriff's Department said.

He resisted when officers tried to handcuff him. A trooper and a Sheriff's Department deputy both used a Taser on him, the Sheriff's Department said.

The Sheriff's Department says the man told a deputy that he had "snorted methamphetamine to lose weight" and that he was taking prescribed morphine.

"The meth doesn't make me crazy, man," the Sheriff's Department says the man told the deputy. "The lizard people are real!"

He said President Trump had called his house in Eatonville, warned about the lizard people and said the "alpha dragon" had taken his family hostage.

The man explained that he stopped at the Parkland intersection because the lizard people had surrounded him and because he needed to follow the president's directions to fight them.

He made a scene to attract the news media so "his story could be documented for history," the Sheriff's Department reported.

Medics were called and determined the man was "heavily under the influence of a stimulant," the Sheriff's Department said,

A deputy found a loaded AK-47 and a loaded .357-caliber pistol in the man's vehicle. There were five loaded magazines for the AK-47. Counting the extra magazines and the one in the rifle, there were 172 rounds, the Sheriff's Department says.