On January 1, 2016, Police Officer Quincy Smith responded to a suspicious persons call at the Charles Party Shop in Estill, South Carolina, reports the Fourteenth Circuit Solicitors Office.
Smith was wearing glasses embedded with a camera; the footage was released Thursday.
When a woman at the shop tells Smith that a man wearing camouflage and a red bandana tried snatching groceries from customers, the officer leaves the store, gets in his vehicle, and pulls up behind a man matching the clerks description a few hundred yards away from the alleged incident.
The man has since been identified as Malcolm Antwan Orr.
Smith exits his vehicle, and calls to Orr: Come here, man. Come here for a second. Orr simply looks back, and begins to walk away.
Smith calls again: Come here. You better stop. Come here. Orr continues walking, and begins to pick up the pace just slightly. Getting closer to the suspect, Smith starts to yell: Stop. Stop! Take your hands out your pocket! If you dont stop, I'm gonna tase you. I'm not playing with you. Take your hand out your pocket!
Orr, with his hand still inside his jacket pocket, keeps walking.
When Smith issues a final demand for Orr to take his hand out of his pocket, he does so, revealing a gun. Orr fires eight shots at Smith in quick succession.
Shots fired! Smith can be heard yelling as he hits the ground and begins to run to his patrol car. Orr continues to fire even as the officer bolts for cover. Smith sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the arm, torso, and neck.
Upon reaching his car, Smith radios for help. Dispatch, Im hit! Dispatch, Echo 7, Im hit! With a labored breath in-between words, Smith utters: Dispatch help. Several seconds later, blood visible on the interior of the police car, as well as on his right hand, Officer Smith reports that his arms are broken, adding: Help me, please.
In a heartbreaking moment, Smith tells the operator on the other end of the radio: Dispatch, please tell my family I love them.
A bystander appears at the scene, and does what he can to help Smith and keep him calm. Two women who appear to know Smith personally approach as well.
Panicked, one woman asks if Smith knows who shot him. Another woman prays: In the name of Jesus, you shall live. In the name of Jesus, you will not die!
Soon, sirens can be heard, an ambulance arrives, and Officer Quincy Smith is taken to the hospital.
He survived.
The incredible footage is difficult to watch, but it should be seen. In a time when police officers are regularly vilified for the actions of a few, videos like this remind us that the great majority of law enforcement officers risk their lives every day so that we can live safely.
Fortunately, in large part because of the footage taken by Smiths camera, Malcolm Antwan Orr was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for attempted murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
Poster Comment:
The cop's mistake was in failing to tase the perp after his second warning to stop. So not a stellar police performance.
But we see again how useful cop body cams are in determining events later.
But we see again how useful cop body cams are in determining events later.
Pfft! Body cams. Panem et Circenses.
The cop's mistake was in failing to tase the perp after his second warning to stop.
In hindsight, sure. In hindsight he should have pulled his gun rather than his taser.
Had the perp been tased and unarmed, Deckard would have had a field day. You have to wonder if the oficer wasn't thinking about political correctness at the time -- and how PC almost killed him.
The cop was too lenient, too unwilling to take forceful action
Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I agree.
But here we have yet another encounter between a white cop and a black suspect. So right away the cop is thinking that he has to go easy.
I believe the officer had his taser out because he expected the guy to run. When he kept walking away, that should have set off alarm bells. At that point he should have tased him or drawn his gun.
But, with the cop's luck, the guy could have a heart condition and die. Or he's deaf. Or retarded. Or off his meds. Or he's not even the right guy.
Annnnnd here we go again -- trigger-happy white cop assaults innocent black man who was simply walking down the street. The department settles for $3 million and he's forced to resign, never to work again.
Don't tell me all that didn't flash through his mind. And he almost died because of it.
But here we have yet another encounter between a white cop and a black suspect. So right away the cop is thinking that he has to go easy.
Did I miss something? I thought the cop was a Negro.
There was a window reflection as he hobbled back to the copmobile and he was speaking Ebonically.
A cursory search indicates that this is the cop, Quincy Smith of Estill, SC.
Annnnnd here we go again -- trigger-happy white cop assaults innocent black man who was simply walking down the street. The department settles for $3 million and he's forced to resign, never to work again.
Well, you were doing what we all do: constructing a mental picture of the scene.
You are steadily concerned with police not feeling they can do anything without getting sued or even prosecuted. So in an ambiguous video like this one, you read into it your own mental agenda. Grinding your favorite ax, so to speak.
We all do this all the time. We read ourselves into the stories we read. Cop threads, both for pro-cop types and anti-cop types, are good examples of this. Human beings are not neutral readers or neutral witnesses, even when we're sure that we are.
Well, you were doing what we all do: constructing a mental picture of the scene.
I saw a brief clip of the video on TV and could have sworn it was a white cop. So I based my comments on what I thought I saw. There was a basis.
But GrandIsland is correct. The officer should have had his Glock out until the perp showed his hands. I'm sure that will be the point is this gets turned into a training video.