KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? A policewoman threatened at a mental health clinic by a gun-wielding teenager didn’t shoot him because other people were in her line of fire.

The 15-year-old boy didn’t shoot, either, and he was captured quickly after running away. On Thursday, Sherrick A. Sims of Kansas City, Kan., was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and criminal possession of a firearm, both felonies, as well as a misdemeanor gun possession count.

Sandy Omtvedt, an eight-year veteran of the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department, was the first officer to arrive Wednesday at the Wyandot Center for Behavioral Healthcare after a call that a client there might be armed.

Harried employees directed her to the third floor, where the teenage boy who had come in for group treatment was in a room with at least two employees. Omtvedt said that as she approached the room, she told the boy to put his hands on his head. The boy instead ran out of the room, knocking her into a bookcase in the hallway. Then he pulled a .25-caliber handgun from his pocket, slapped a magazine into it and pointed the weapon at her, saying, “You don’t want it to end this way.”

“Drop your weapon,” Omtvedt replied.

He refused, but he didn’t fire at the officer, only 6 feet away. And although her gun was drawn, Omtvedt didn’t shoot either because there were at least two women in the area.

The boy backed into an open elevator, stopped, then ran down a stairwell and out of the building. Omtvedt, tracking him from a third-floor window, used her radio to tell other officers where he was, and he was arrested within minutes.

The teenager, who was under court order to attend group sessions at the mental health center, had given no indications of being violent, said center director Pete Zevenbergen.

The incident reflects the difficulty that mental health centers face balancing client needs with employee safety.

“We have no metal detectors and probably won’t have any,” he said. “We have a lot of people who come into our building carrying all of their possessions in this world on their back. We have had people who have brought in weapons. The question is: How do we deal with that?”

Omtvedt said it was the first time since she joined the force that she had to draw her weapon. She said that normal procedure suggested that she wait until other officers arrived, but the fear she saw on the faces of the employees told her she couldn’t do that.

“She saved lives and didn’t jeopardize other lives unnecessarily,” said Capt. Michael Kobe, the police spokesman. “She did a great job.”