A Concord police officer on unpaid leave testified that he followed his training when he knocked a resistant homeless man to the ground while attempting to take him into protective custody in April 2023.

“As rough as this sounds, our job is to not lose that fight,” Richard Cobb said as he recounted the interaction from the witness stand on Thursday afternoon during his trial on two assault charges.

Cobb, who began working for the Concord Police Department in 2017, said he decided to conduct a “leg sweep” only after the man struggled to be placed in handcuffs for about 40 seconds, a decision he said was justified by the dangers posed when officers lose control of an individual while attempting to take them into custody.

“We cannot lose that fight. We have weapons on us, we have tasers, we have firearms, and we have a radio, all things that they can use against us in the event that we do lose that fight,” Cobb said.

Cobb and another officer were called to the sidewalk outside Sal’s Pizza at about 6:30 p.m. on the first Saturday in April 2023 for a report of a man muttering to himself that he was going to shoot an “invisible person,” prosecutor Dan Jimenez said in his opening statement on Wednesday.

Cobb said the man – Blake Haney – was initially “cordial”, at first directing the officers to “take me to the station.” However, Cobb said Haney grew uncooperative after the officers had secured the first handcuff around his wrist.

Then, the other side of the handcuffs became “what I’d argue is a deadly weapon at that point,” Cobb said.

It was at that moment that Cobb said he decided to take Haney to the ground.

“We were having a hard time controlling his hands,” Cobb said. “There was a present threat to Officer Tarwo and I; he was impaired; he had only had a cursory search at the time; there was a mention of a firearm.”

Haney sustained lacerations to his forehead and below his left eye from the fall, photos showed.

Minutes later, as Cobb and the other officer conducted a search of the handcuffed Haney against one of their police cruisers, Cobb said the man lunged at him.

In response, Cobb admitted that he “pushed him” hard.

“He posed a danger to me,” Cobb said. “I wanted to re-correct that danger.”

Prosecutors argue that both the “leg sweep” and the push against the cruiser were unjustified, illegal uses of force.

“There was no reason and there was no need to slam his head into the cruiser,” Jimenez said regarding the second incident during his opening statement on Wednesday.

Cobb’s testimony also provided new details on what led the Concord Police Department, and ultimately the attorney general’s office, to look into what transpired.

He said he heard a bystander tell another office who had arrived on scene, “I’m not okay with that.” At least one individual later filed a formal complaint with the department.

The Concord Police Department has not yet responded to a right-to-know request for Cobb’s personnel file that was filed by the Monitor earlier this week.

In addition to the two charges in this case, Cobb also faces separate assault charges from an incident that occurred six days beforehand. In that case, which is set to go to trial in March, he is accused of assaulting two individuals.

Cobb now lives in Arizona and was charged with the four counts of assault last March. He faces a sentence of up to two to five years for each count.

The trial will conclude with closing arguments on Friday morning at 9 a.m. in Merrimack County Superior Court.

Editor’s note: This story has updated to clarify the status of Richard Cobb’s employment with the city.