Darren Wilson, the Ferguson Police Officer whom a Grand Jury declined to indict over the shooting death of Micheal Brown, gave a lengthy in-person interview to George Stephanopoulos on ABC News last night. That interview is embedded at the bottom of this post.
But this post is not really about Darren Wilson, at least not directly.
It’s about Johnson City, NY (near Binghamton), Police Officer David Smith, who was involved in a similar incident on March 31, 2014.
A reader from this area (Johnson City is about 45 minutes from Ithaca) forwarded me the link, writing: “I had forgotten about this event very close to home but it seems to me that it is relevant to current events.”
In that incident, a seemingly crazed and aggressive perpetrator managed to take Officer Smith’s weapon from him, and then use it to murder Officer Smith:
Police say a suspect shot and killed a Johnson City police officer with the officer’s own weapon on Monday morning.Officer David Smith was an 18-year veteran of the force, police said at an afternoon news conference.The suspect, 43-year-old James Clark of Greene, pulled away Smith’s weapon and shot the officer three times, according to police.Clark fired at another officer, who then shot the suspect several times. Clark was taken to a hospital and later died.
As recounted in this video, the circumstances were remarkably similar to the initial assault on Darren Wilson by Michael Brown: Sucker punches to an officer seated in his patrol car, with the perpetrator then leaning in to try to steal the weapon:
Officer Smith’s funeral was attended by hundreds.
But there was no looting, no rioting, no arson, no businesses destroyed.
If Michael Brown had managed to get Darren Wilson’s service weapon from him, that would have been the reaction too. Just a collective shrug. No presidential televised addresses to the nation.
Officer David Smith never lived to tell about what happened to him. Officer Darren Wilson did.
Here is Officer Wilson’s account of what happened, and how he survived:
[Featured Image: CNY Central YouTube]
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