Knife-wielding teen shot by police was a bullying victim, dad says

"My son wasn’t just some knife-wielding psychopath," Justin Clark said of his 14-year-old child who was shot in the chest by police as he waved knives at his classmates last week.

According to Clark, Logan, who remains in a medically induced coma, pulled the knives out in self defense after being hit so hard by an upperclassman moments earlier that his mouth started bleeding.

"You gotta remember that he just got hit two or three times in the face by a kid that’s three years older than him and quite a bit bigger," Clark said during an interview on NBC's "Today" Thursday.

In video footage of the Dec. 7 shooting, the freshman from Hug High School in Reno, Nevada, is seen holding two knives in a defensive posture and lunging toward several students in an outdoor campus courtyard.

As he was wielding the knives, Logan is bleeding from the mouth — a facial wound Clark insists came from a earlier altercation with a bullying classmate. "He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t beat up and robbed," Clark said.

Moments after the single shot rang out, the teen fell to the ground, shaking in pain. School officials have praised the officer for doing what they deemed necessary at the time, but Clark maintains his son would never have actually hurt anyone.

As a result of the gunshot, Logan was rushed to the emergency room, where he suffered from a stroke and had to be rushed into surgery.

Clark criticized the law enforcement officer for acting too quickly and not taking time to analyze the situation.

"That’s a defensive posture, that’s not an attacking posture," the father said of his son's stance in the video. "He’s bleeding from the mouth — obviously something has happened before the video."

The officer who shot Logan has reportedly been placed on administrative leave while the incident is being investigated.