Mount Vernon officer wounded on the job speaks first sentence
Jan 6, 2017, 4:21 PM
Mike McClaughry was shot in the line of duty in Mount Vernon on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016. (Mount Vernon Police)
(Mount Vernon Police)
By Alison Grande
Mount Vernon Police Officer Mike McClaughry, who was shot in the head during a call in December, said his first sentence Thursday.
“He said,’ I will be glad when I feel better,'” McClaughry’s brother, Steve, said Friday during a news conference at Harborview Medical Center,
The officer’s daughter said McClaughry is starting to smile and it is clear he can understand what they are saying.
“It feels like you’re getting your dad back,” said April McClaughry.
KIRO-7’s Alison Grande was at the news conference and is going through the interviews with McClaughry’s family. She’s putting the story together for KIRO 7 News at 5 p.m. Watch on TV or use the KIRO 7 livestream here.
McClaughry, 60, was moved out of ICU into an acute care unit at Harborview Medical Center on Wednesday, January 5.
Dr. Randy Chesnut, a UW professor of neurological surgery, said McClaughry is making progress. He said it is hard to quantify but said McClaughry is in serious condition. The veteran officer is in and out of consciousness and they are taking his recovery day by day.
McClaughry’s family says the fact that he can smile and even speak lets them know he is able to hear. He is also able to follow some commands.
McClaughry was shot when he responded to call in Mount Vernon on December 15th. The bullet hit him in the head.
Ernesto Rivas, 44, was arrested in McClaughry’s shooting. According to court papers, he fired from inside the house, where he was holed up with two teenagers.
Police say it was those two teenagers that initially brought police to the scene last on December 15th.
Police say 16-year-old Austin Gonzales and a 15-year-old boy shot another teenager, 18-year-old Kyler Vallejo, nearby.
Then, according to charging documents, the two teens went to the house and shot at police, along with Rivas, for several hours.
Originally thought to be hostages, police negotiators say the teenagers could be heard laughing.
Prosecutors say the two teenagers and Vallejo, who they allegedly shot in the neck, are in rival gangs. Vallejo is expected to survive.
Rivas and the two teens are charged with attempted first-degree murder for shooting McClaughry in the back of the head.
The teenagers are also charged with attempted murder in the second degree in the shooting of the other teen.
