NASHUA – Dispatched around midnight Sunday to Christopher J. Kalloger’s Merrimack apartment to make sure Kalloger’s young children were OK, two Merrimack police officers suddenly found themselves facing the barrel of a 9 mm handgun, according to their report filed in court.

When Kalloger, 35, came to the door of his 1 London Court apartment and stated “‘I have a gun,'” one of the officers said, “the first image I saw … was a pistol pointed directly at my head… .”

Drawing his own gun, the officer said he “rose it until I was aiming at (Kalloger). I yelled, ‘police,’ and ‘drop your gun,’ numerous times,” according to the report.

When the officers saw that Kalloger’s hands were empty, they ordered him to “back up and drop to the ground,” they said in the report. But he allegedly refused, “clenched his fists, and got into an aggressive stature … and (said) something (like) ‘get the (expletive) out of my house.’

“I subsequently Tased Christopher,” the first officer wrote, and they took him into custody.

Police charged Kalloger with one count each of reckless conduct and criminal threatening, both Class B felonies, and one count of resisting arrest or detention, a Class A misdemeanor.

He was jailed overnight pending Monday’s arraignment in Hillsborough County Superior Court South, at which Judge Jacalyn Colburn found probable cause on the charges and ordered his $10,000 cash only bail continued.

Police said they were sent to Kalloger’s residence at the request of Nashua police, who, the reports state, had received a call from the children’s mother shortly after Kalloger picked up the children from her Nashua residence.

The mother told police Kalloger “appeared intoxicated,” that he didn’t have a valid license, and that she was concerned for the children’s welfare.

At arraignment, meanwhile, Assistant County Attorney Cassie Devine said Kalloger “is very lucky he’s alive today. He pointed a gun at a police officer’s head.”

She called Kalloger a “danger” to others in asking Colburn to continue Kalloger’s cash only bail, noting that he “had to be Tased” by police.

But Attorney Amanda Henderson, a public defender who represented Kallogen at arraignment, said her client “is not a flight risk,” nor is he a “danger to the community, despite the severity of the charges.”

In asking for $10,000 personal recognizance bail, Henderson said Kalloger is a carpenter who has several jobs lined up, and is the “the sole provider” for his household, which includes his girlfriend and his two young children.

Henderson said Kalloger armed himself when he went to the door because he “was surprised” and concerned that someone was knocking on his door without him “buzzing them in” to the building.

Police, meanwhile, said that Kalloger, in brief questioning following his arrest and booking, “said it was his right to answer his door with his pistol in an upright, ready position, and if the police came to his house again, he’d do it again,” according to the reports.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.