minutes and takes daniel roy smith away. smith, as it turns out, is a career criminal, who had escaped from a halfway house. after this incident, he s convicted of attempted murder and firearm possession and sentenced to 50 years in prison. despite being shot at from point-blank range, corporal mecham escapes the incident without injury. he attributes that in part to a premonition he had the night before. basically, the night before i just had this feeling come over me that i needed to practice drawing my weapon and do that repeatedly. and i unloaded my gun, and then i started putting it back in the holster, securing it, and then what we call quick draw. and there s no doubt in my mind that that was heaven sent. that i needed to practice more so than ever. that practice may have helped save the officer s life.
and best i could to get there. as corporal mecham is radioing for help, he also yells for smith to drop his weapon. buddy, put that gun down or i will kill you! put the gun down! get your hands in the air! now! when i heard simmons sirens a feeling of relief came over me. i knew i had help and quickly it would be over with. i got to the scene, corporal mecham was behind his car. i couldn t see the suspect at that time. he was in a ditch in front of the vehicle. he s got a gun, and we got to get it away from him. he s been hit. corporal mecham and officer simmons cautiously approach smith. in his hand. don t look at the gun! don t you move! don t you move! don t you move! i ll shoot your ass again! don t move! put your hands behind your back. an ambulance arrives within
and unzip it. lay the satchel right there. when mecham asks him to put the satchel down, it sets smith off. well, you might have a warrant. when he started backing up, i immediately knew then, that s a telltale sign of when someone is not compliant that they re the guy you re looking for. corporal mecham pleads with him to stop. don t do this. don t do this. i really thought he was going to run, and then a foot chase would ensue and possibly him be tasered, different things like that. that s what i meant when i said let s don t do this. don t do this, mr. smith. i certainly had no idea he was about to pull a gun. without warning, smith reaches into his satchel and pulls out a revolver. he pulled it out. i saw the barrel. i immediately started backing up as quickly as i could to create some distance and to get my gun out. corporal mecham backs up and stumbles to the ground. when he was yelling at me to
corporal wes mecham is patroling at 4:00 a.m. when he spots a man walking on the side of the road. i had traveled this road, i couldn t tell you how many times on night shift throughout my career and never all those times i travel that had road seen anybody walking that time of night. corporal mecham wonders if his car had broken down. his dash cam turns on automatically. i m not saying you re doing anything wrong, i m just asking. we don t get too many people walking this time of night. he was very compliant. very polite. talked to me in a friendly manner. mecham asks to see only i.d. and even cracks joke. you ve been walking a while. them are some wet shoes. the man explains he s walking to go buy a soda. aside from the late hour, this doesn t seem unusual to corporal mecham. just going to get something to drink or something to eat? just a soda or something. ok. that s cool. what is odd, however, is the man s i.d. is that your i.d. right there? yes, sir. c
roll over, my blood went cold. that s when i knew i didn t have any time left. i had to go for my gun right then. lying flat on his back, mecham quickly pulls out his gun. he fired the first shot, and i can still to this day, i can see the muzzle flash. i can smell the smoke. i can hear the boom. i can hear it all. but mecham is not hit and begins firing back. i know all total i hit him five times. i don t know how many bullets hit him when he was standing over me and how many struck when he was run away. as the corporal unloads, smith runs for cover in a ditch. he turned to his left to run away, and i kept shooting because he was still a threat. as soon as he hit the ditch, i jumped to my feet. my first instinct was to call for help. it s cool. but then in that instant