The mother of a man accused of a weekend altercation with troopers over a plastic sword is asking for empathy and understanding from state police and the community.

Kendee Connor of Jefferson Township is also soliciting prayers for her son, 34-year-old Kenneth Connor Jr., who she described as autistic and intellectually disabled.

“People in this community know and love Ken,” his mother said Wednesday. “He's a doll baby and he's never, ever gotten into any trouble or done anything even close or similar to this.”

She said her oldest of three sons continues to receive medical treatment at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he has remained since the incident with police around 8 a.m. Sunday outside the Dollar General store on West Main Street in Saxonburg.

She said she believes that his mental and medical conditions, coupled with difficulty adjusting to stay-at-home routines in light of COVID-19 and possibly seizure activity, precipitated the events that morning.

“We're trying to unravel what happened that would cause him to do what they said he did,” Kendee said, “because it's so out of character for him.

“I just want to petition the community to have compassion for everyone. We all should have compassion for one another. I want to petition them to pray for him because he's very, very ill.”

Police said they went to the store after an employee called to report a man walking around the premises with a sword. Troopers got there and saw the man, later identified as Kenneth Connor Jr., holding what looked to be a real sword.

They told him to drop the sword, which he did, police said. But when he subsequently appeared to make an attempt to retrieve it, two troopers tried to restrain him.

Police later acknowledged that the sword was not real, but plastic.

One of the troopers suffered minor injuries, police said, when he fell to the ground with the other officer and Connor. Police said Connor kicked and grabbed at the troopers while resisting arrest.

According to court documents, police had to drive-stun him with a Taser before he was eventually arrested. He was taken to the hospital for unspecified treatment, police said.

On Tuesday, police obtained an arrest warrant for Kenneth Connor Jr. on criminal charges, including aggravated assault of a police officer, a felony, and resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.

He is to be arraigned on the charges, authorities said, upon being discharged from the hospital.

Kendee Connor said her son was unusually restless the day before the incident. She attributed that to his being stuck at home due to COVID-19 and because his recent caregiver had returned to college.

He has lived with his mother all of his life. She said his IQ is 51 or 52, and he cannot live on his own.

Before the pandemic, he would enjoy getting out of the house with one of his caregivers, going to stores, buying groceries and visiting the park.

He also likes to watch sports on television, but that has been another pleasure denied him because of the pandemic.

“He had a really hard day on Saturday,” she recalled. “Come nighttime, he wouldn't go to sleep. He was very distressed, pacing, really upset.”

She said one of her other sons, who was visiting, stayed up with Kenneth until about 5 a.m. Sunday to try and calm him. Exhausted, Kendee Connor at some point fell asleep.

A phone call would awaken her: It was from police telling her they had a “situation” with one of her sons.

“Never in my life that I thought it would be Ken,” she said. She described being stunned by the police account.

“They said they had Kenneth Connor under arrest,” she recalled, “and that he had assaulted an officer with a sword, and they wanted to know where he would have gotten a sword.”

She had no immediate answer. She too was at a loss over how her son had gotten to the store, which is between one-half and three-quarters of a mile from their house.

“He's never left this property before without somebody,” Kendee Connor said.

She struggled to think how he got hold of a sword. She went to his bedroom.

“It was a disaster,” she said, of the apparent aftermath of his restlessness that night.

But within the disheveled room, she found what she thought was the answer about the sword.

“He found an old Halloween costume of his and he dressed up in that costume,” she said, “and it had a sword — a toy, plastic sword.”

On the phone, police told her that her son was being taken to the hospital's emergency room. She told them Kenneth is autistic.

“I don't have any judgments against anybody,” she said. “Kenny was obviously suffering from his own delusions and police were under the assumption that he was dangerous. I'm trying to have compassion for their position not knowing his intellectual disability.”

She said police initially denied her request to see her son at the hospital. She called her son's attorney, Joe Kecskemethy, who she credited with helping make arrangements for her to be with him.

She said she was with Kenneth constantly from Sunday to Tuesday.

She praised the hospital's care for him.

“I'm super thankful and grateful what they're doing for him,” she said. “It's just a bad situation trying to figure out what's going on. We can't find it. We can't figure it out.”

Her son, Kendee Connor said, does not comprehend what happened.

“He doesn't have a clue,” she said. “He's completely confused and traumatized.”

But on Monday, she recounted, he had a crying spell.

“He kept crying and saying, 'I didn't do anything wrong, right mom? I didn't do anything wrong,'” she said.

Kendee Connor said that her life too has been made more stressful than usual with her son's predicament. She's trying to make sense of it all. But that's impossible, she conceded.

“Anyone who knows Kenny will tell you he's the most gentle, kind person,” she said. “He's never done anything disobedient. He's never left this property without anybody.”

She's clinging to her faith in God in her time of trouble. She's also asking for caring from the public. She is praying for understanding from police.

“I'm hoping they have compassion for (Kenneth) and drop the charges,” Kendee said. “I'm going to have compassion for them and not judge them. That's firmly where I stand.”

A patrol corporal working as shift supervisor the day of the incident did not immediately return a telephone call Thursday.