NOBLESVILLE, Ind. - A man accused of stabbing his 2-year-old son to death got into a scuffle with deputies before court Thursday and pleaded with the judge to kill him.

The initial hearing in Hamilton County for Micah Harrison, 30, of Robertsdale, Ala., on a preliminary charge of murder was delayed an hour after deputies had to subdue him during a violent outburst, authorities said.

Once Harrison did appear, he admitted to killing his son and told the judge he wanted death, pleading for "a rope or a bullet."

"I shouldn't have any rights. You should take me out back and shoot me," Harrison said. "I killed my poor little baby. Please kill me."

Police were called to the Autumn Breeze Apartments near Klipsch Music Center just before 5 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a child stabbed.

Harrison's son, Michael Harrison, 2, was found lying between a dresser and a television stand with stab wounds to his chest and forehead, according to the probable cause affidavit. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said Micah Harrison has relatives in the area and that the child's mother lives in Alabama, police said.

According to the affidavit, a woman inside the home at the time told police that Micah Harrison told her "something or someone was trying to kill him" and he attacked a closet door with a claw hammer.

The woman said she took the hammer from Harrison and told him that no one was there, but when she went to hide the hammer, she said she saw Harrison stab the child with a kitchen knife.

She took the knife away from him and called 911, police said.

Investigators said Harrison's two other children, a 4-year-old girl and a 5-year-old girl were in the home at the time, but they were not harmed.

Residents of the apartment complex said they are shocked by the circumstances of the boy's death.

"It's unfathomable," said one man. "You just can't imagine somebody ... what could take that rage to do that to a child? I have three children and all I wanted to do was just hold them last night."

Christopher Price, who lives across the hall from the apartment where the boy died, said the whole thing seems "surreal."

"When you hear something like that and you know that it is right next to you, it's like, it makes it more unbelievable," Price said.

Micah Harrison's trial was set for March 12. He told the judge he hopes he doesn't live that long. Harrison is on suicide watch at the Hamilton County Jail.