By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
Not much could have saved Daniel McCartney’s life the night of Jan. 7. The Pierce County Sheriff Department deputy was just doing his job the way he was trained while faced with the kind of danger that is a daily reality for his peers.
At about 11:30 p.m., McCartney, answering a call from residents of a Frederickson-area home that armed intruders were robbing them, radioed to dispatchers that he was running after two suspects at the scene. In less than a minute, a shot fired at him by a suspect hit him in the neck in his carotid artery and severed his spine. Death was instant, authorities said, despite the attempted life-saving efforts of deputies and paramedics who rushed to the scene and doctors and nurses at a Tacoma hospital.
McCartney didn’t violate any Sheriff Department policies by trying to capture the suspects alone. He handled the situation correctly, according to department officials. They said the simple fact is that in a police agency that could be twice its size and still be undermanned, deputies have the “discretion” to take action alone or wait for backups.
“They’re trained to step up and make decisions. They’re the finest (police) I’ve ever worked with,” said Sheriff Paul Pastor.
“We don’t have a quiet little rural county,” Pastor said at a press conference Jan. 10. “It’s a highly urbanized county. We police 1,800 square miles” and a population that’s comparable to the size of Seattle’s. “That is not easy. We put ourselves at risk” policing in that environment.
Pierce County will eventually have a million people living in it, Pastor said, and “the public and we are facing decisions about how much law enforcement we need.”
Last year, in the preparation of county government’s 2018 budget, Pastor requested but didn’t get 13 funding to hire 13 more deputies for patrol and other law enforcement duties.
A celebration of life for McCartney was held Jan. 17 at Pacific Lutheran University’s Olson Auditorium. The service, which followed a memorial procession from Joint Base Lewis-McChord to PLU, was open to the public.
In the first day following the deputy's death, County Executive Bruce Dammeier said McCartney, 34, “died confronting evil, protecting those who could not protect themselves. We are all praying” for his wife and three children, “friends and fellow deputies.”
U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, a former King County sheriff and whose 8th Congressional District includes part of Pierce County, said the public should not only pray for McCartney “and the Pierce County Sheriff Department, but we should take a moment to thank our communities’ law enforcement officers and remember the sacrifices they make every day. These men and women show a level of bravery and courage that cannot be rivaled. Even in the face of increasing violence, they put their lives on the line to protect our families, and I cannot be more grateful for their service and sacrifice."
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