Officer James Kellett of Carrolton Township, Michigan is clearly a good man to have around around in an emergency, as the Associated Press reports.

Officer James Kellett said a skunk whose head was stuck in an empty salad dressing jar wandered into the police station’s parking lot Thursday in Carrollton Township, near Saginaw and about 80 miles north of Detroit.

Kellett wanted to serve and protect the white-striped weasel, but wasn’t interested in any resistance — spray or otherwise. So he grabbed a BB gun used in hunters’ safety courses and shot at the jar from about 40 feet.

The shots cracked and shattered the jar, leaving a glass collar around the skunk’s neck. With its head free, the skunk ran off.

“I didn’t want to use deadly force, and it is a residential area,” Kellett told The Saginaw News. “The way he was when he took off, he was able to eat, breathe and spray — and do anything else skunks like to do.”

Kellett didn’t get much in the way of gratitude, but he’s grateful the skunk didn’t spray. And the makers of T. Marzetti’s salad dressing are sending the officer coupons good for free dressing as a reward.

There is a Japanese saying, Katsujin-ken Satsujin-to “The sword which kills is also the sword which gives life.”

Hat tip to Frank A. Dobbs.