Police say there’s one reason to step into harm’s way: the victims

Just two weeks after a Tacoma police officer was shot in the line of duty, another officer, this time in Mount Vernon, was shot answering a call.

The frequency and violence of it had Ron Upshaw of KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don show thinking about how officers prepare to respond to potentially dangerous situations.  Do officers put on vests? Helmets?

Mount Vernon police officer shot in line of duty hailed as community leader

“Most agencies don’t have helmets and that type of gear,” Pierce County Detective Ed Troyer told Ron. “And by the time you get that type of gear on that’s for special weapons and tactics and SWAT teams.”

So is there a way to make it safer for officers responding when bullets are flying?

“Absolutely, but you have to go out to those calls,” Troyer said.  “What we’re learning about this guy (Mount Vernon shooting suspect Ernesto Rivas) is he knew officers were coming, he laid in wait, and he shot the Mount Vernon officer.  Us, as police officers, go to shootings because there’s a victim. We’re not going to sit two blocks away and let the victim die.”

Mike “Mick” McClaughry was shot in the head while canvassing the area after reports of a shooting in Mount Vernon Thursday night. Gunfire rang out from a house as McClaughry approached. Fellow officers dragged him through the yard and to safety. McClaughry was taken to Skagit Valley Hospital and then airlifted to Harborview Medical Center where he remains in critical condition.

“This one was a lot more dangerous in that this was a gun battle right from the beginning,” Troyer said. “This was a criminal who was intending to shoot at police officers. (In Jake’s case) the suspect who shot may have had some mental health issues. They’re looking into that now. He didn’t have much of a criminal background.”

Ron, who was in Puyallup with Troyer for the annual Toys for Tots drive, said that many times he’s had to talk to the detective about an officer-involved shooting or school shooting during the charity event.

“I don’t think, in today’s world it’s going to stop and that might scare people away from police work, but I think it might be a call to action,” Troyer said. “People that are on the fence, it might be a good time to join up and get on our side.”

Ron said it was fascinating to see people’s narratives about cops change when they had a positive experience through a recent campaign – Beds for Kids, which the Seattle Police Department organized. “When you replace all those negative interactions with law enforcement with positive ones, I think it’s one act at a time.”

“That’s one of the things the sheriff talks about a lot is there are two sides of it. You have the community and you have the police. We both have to understand that police officers make mistakes. A few of us have done bad things and need to be charged. We need to hold them accountable. We agree with that 100 percent. But we also understand that 99 percent of the community supports what we do… if we can educate kids not to be afraid of police officers – because we want them, if they get into trouble, to run to us, not from us. We need to do education on our end and the community needs to tell us what they’re afraid of. It’s a two-way street.”

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