LOWELL — It’s not every day a Lowell police officer winds up wrestling a 63‑year‑old man armed with a butter knife — a utensil he had apparently been using moments earlier to eat peanut butter straight from the jar.
But that’s exactly what unfolded late Thursday afternoon at Kerouac Park, where a group of skateboarders filming tricks suddenly found themselves capturing a chaotic, roughly minute‑long struggle that left an officer bloodied and one bystander shouting in disbelief, “It’s a butter knife! What the (expletive) is going on?”
The man at the center of the bizarre showdown was Robert Zygarowski, of Lowell, who now faces a series of charges including assault and battery on a police officer.
And as strange as the scene was, it wasn’t even the first time the 63-year-old had been accused of pulling a knife on police.
Zion Panza, of Haverhill, was the man behind the camera during Thursday’s incident.
He said a man — later identified by police as Zygarowski — had been wandering around the park eating peanut butter with what appeared to be a butter knife. Panza said Zygarowski approached the skateboarders and tried striking up a conversation with them.
“He kept saying, ‘Hey cameraman,’” Panza recalled. “He was telling my friends how he just broke some lady’s windshield.”
That claim aligned with what a Lowell police officer reported moments earlier over the emergency radio broadcast: that he had been flagged down on Bridge Street by people saying a man had just smashed a vehicle window in traffic.
After chatting with the skateboarders, Panza said, Zygarowski “kind of lurked around the park” until a Lowell police officer arrived to speak with him about the broken window.
Panza said the two talked for a while, which is a portion he noted he did not catch on video. But he believed the issue centered on Zygarowski refusing to identify himself to the officer.
What Panza did capture on video was the moment the conversation turned physical.
“Once (the officer) grabbed the guy, he said, ‘No no, I’ll give you my birthdate, I’ll give you my name,’” Panza said. “And they just started wrestling.”
The video shows the officer approaching Zygarowski with a friendly “How are you doing, sir?” before cutting to the officer trying to restrain him, repeatedly ordering him to put his arms behind his back.
The officer can be heard saying, “It’s going to get worse if you don’t give me your arm.” As he speaks, Zygarowski responds, but his words are unintelligible on the recording.
The two grapple, and the officer performs a leg sweep that sends both men crashing to the ground.
At one point, Zygarowski wraps his legs around the officer and appears to gain control. That’s when the butter knife — clutched in his fist, blade pointed downward — comes into view as he jabs it toward the officer’s head.
The angle makes it unclear whether the blade makes contact, but the next time the officer’s face is visible, blood can be seen streaked on the left side.
Seeing the struggle escalate, the skateboarders intervene. As Panza pointed out, “We aren’t going to watch this guy get stabbed.”
One skateboarder appears to attempt to knock the knife from Zygarowski’s hand with his board. Another, stunned by the scene, can be heard exclaiming, “It’s a butter knife! What the (expletive) is going on?”
After about a minute of wrestling, the officer managed to regain control, appearing to secure Zygarowski in a leg hold as the video ends.
The tension was also evident over the emergency radio broadcast, where a dispatcher reported an officer on the ground and that he was not responding as additional units headed to the scene.
An ambulance was requested for the officer shortly after backup arrived and took Zygarowski into custody.
Lowell Police Deputy Superintendent Mark LeBlanc said that the officer suffered facial lacerations but was back at work on Friday.
Zygarowski, meanwhile, appeared in Lowell District Court on Friday in shackles, facing charges including assault and battery on a police officer, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, attempting to disarm a police officer, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and malicious damage to a motor vehicle.
The tension carried into the courtroom as well.
During Zygarowski’s brief appearance before Judge John Coffey, a not‑guilty plea was entered on his behalf.
The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office also moved to revoke his release on a separate pending case — one that also involved an alleged knife‑related confrontation with the Lowell Police, and which also began on Bridge Street last May.
In that case, a Lowell police officer wrote in an incident report that she was called for a man down near Bridge Street and VFW Highway. She said she saw Zygarowski — whom she noted she knew from prior interactions — “refusing care” and walking outbound on Bridge Street. He had “blood dripping from his head/face area,” the officer said.
According to the report, Zygarowski agreed to let an emergency medical technician come to the scene to clean his wounds and check his condition. While waiting in the CVS parking lot on Bridge Street, the officer said Zygarowski was “unsteady on his feet, repeatedly contorting and twisting his body.”
When the ambulance arrived, Zygarowski grew agitated and did not want to get inside. The officer wrote that she believed he “would be a hazard to himself” if he did not receive medical care, so she grabbed his arm to prevent him from leaving. At that point, an EMT yelled that Zygarowski had a knife.
The officer stated that another officer on scene took Zygarowski to the ground, “which is when he brandished a knife.” The officers and medical crew backed off as additional units arrived.
According to the report, Zygarowski then began stabbing the windows of two police cruisers. He allegedly ignored commands to stop his erratic and aggressive behavior, and officers deployed two Tasers. After a physical struggle, he was handcuffed.
In addition to assault and battery on a police officer, he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct, malicious damage to a motor vehicle, and resisting arrest.
Court records show he was initially held without bail in that case. It is unclear when he was released.
On Friday, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office argued that Zygarowski violated the terms of that release, which included a prohibition on possessing dangerous weapons.
Coffey ordered him held through the weekend, noting that no defense attorney was available to represent him on the motion to revoke his release until Monday.
“Why can’t I represent myself?” Zygarowski asked.
He fired off questions about which charges he was being held on, many of them difficult to decipher.
“So, we can’t settle this today? There’s a problem? There’s no lawyer?” Zygarowski asked Coffey. “That means I got to go to Billerica for the weekend?”
He then turned toward the prosecutor and said, “Say your prayers, buddy.”
“If you want more charges, keep talking,” Coffey warned.
A court officer then approached and spoke quietly to Zygarowski, who responded in a softer tone, “I’m telling him to say his prayers is all.”
Court records show Zygarowski had been scheduled to return to court next Thursday on the earlier case for a hearing on a motion to dismiss the charges, filed by his attorney, Peter Garrigan, on the grounds that he had been found incompetent to stand trial.
Garrigan was not immediately available for comment.
Follow Aaron Curtis on X @aselahcurtis, or on Bluesky @aaronscurtis.bsky.social.
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