Police Officer says he's blessed that his badge saved his life

General General Discussion
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http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11740174

OAKLAND, TN (WMC-TV) - This story gives new meaning to the phrase badge of honor. After all, it is a badge that is credited with saving Oakland Police Officer Joshua Smith’s life, after a man shot him at point-blank range.

“It felt like someone hit me in the chest with a baseball bat,” Smith said, speaking out for the first time since the shooting on Christmas Eve.

“I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t catch my breath. At that point I was worried about finding a wound and stopping the bleeding,” Smith said.

But there was no wound, and there was no bleeding, thanks to his steel badge. Officer Smith says it all started at one in the morning Christmas Eve when he spotted a car weaving wildly on Highway 64 in Oakland.

He pulled the car with an expired temporary tag over and ordered the driver to get out for a field sobriety test. The passenger also got out, and swung a knife at Smith. As Smith subdued the passenger, the driver pulled a gun out and shot Smith at point-blank range.

“As soon as the shot happened and I fell back, I was thinking, defend, defend, defend,” Smith said.

Smith fired back, the driver screamed, and they took off.

Smith says doctors told him, without his badge, the wound to his chest could have killed him.

“It could have been where my family was making funeral preparations instead of my kids opening gifts with their dad and my wife.”

Before the shooting, Smith says he didn’t even like the badges which he considered bulky.

“{I said, they} weigh the collar down…It wasn’t really just complaining, it was a complaining statement.”

Smith says he got everything he wanted for Christmas.

“My life and my family. Yeah, I got everything I needed. Everything I wanted.”

The company that made the badges heard about what happened. They’re going to put it in a nice box and give it to Officer Smith, so he can keep it. They do plan to give him another badge.

Copyright 2009 WMC-TV. All rights reserved

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Thank God for a bulky, heavy badge!!!

Glad he was able to go home to his family, hopefully the DB will be dealt with swiftly and soundly.

Buckaroo

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Just got issued a new, heavier badge. It sags the uniform a bit and is heavier in the pocket, but perhaps I’ll complain a bit less now.

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Where was his vest? Did he complain about that too and thus choose not to wear it?

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I don’t know about blessed, but he’s one lucky fucker.

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Same thing only the subject’s acknowledgment is different.

Buckaroo

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heh, True dat

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Way back in the early 1970’s there was a cop in possibly New York who was saved by a pair of metal CROSS pens in his pocket. Saw a photo and recall the story well other than the location.

He was hit by a 148 gr wadcutter fired from a 2" Colt snub gun. The slug hit the pen squarely and never penetrated his skin. Bent the pen and the slug was found on the ground.

When I graduated from the Academy in 1974 my Mom bought me a set of CROSS pens. Not for their bullet resistence, but I’d commented once that they looked nice with a uniform. I carried those pens for thirty two years.

FN in MT

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Another related article said he was wearing it but where the round impacted the blunt force trauma could have still killed him.

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He has a lot to be thankful for this Christmas season.

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Glad he is safe and home with his family uninjured.

I know my little star of a badge wouldn’t stop a bullet. Hell I can barely keep from bending the damn thing.

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…that seems rather odd to me. Vests are only supposed to allow so much blunt trauma to get an NIJ rating. I’m assuming his badge was on his upper chest which his vest should have been covering. The only way that the story makes sense to me is if he wasn’t wearing his vest or if he was hit by something his vest wasn’t rated to stop.

If he was using a level II or IIa vest and was shot with something like a .44, the badge save angle makes sense.

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Weirder things have happened. I have an academy classmate whose badge deflected a .223 that had passed through his windshield. The bullet fragmented and shredded some of his arm muscle but he did remarkably well for someone shot in the chest with a .223.

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I think it may have been a .44, let me try to find the other article I read.

ETA: Nothing about caliber, just a statement that it was a black revolver.

http://suburbancommunitynews.com/articles/2009/12/29/oakland_news/news/doc4b3a3b6761b42537501959.txt

Badge saves officer from bullet

Oakland Police Officer Joshua Smith wasn’t fond of the new metal badges that Chief Keith Hogwood ordered for the department around five months ago.

In fact, several of the town’s officers thought the new badges, although pleasing to the eyes, were too thick and heavy.
However, Smith’s opinion of the badges was altered early last Thursday morning when he was shot during a traffic stop.

The bullet, fired from point-blank range by a black revolver, hit the “dead center” of Smith’s badge before skipping off his protective vest and tearing through a portion of his shirt.

“In the ambulance that night,” Hogwood recalled, “he told me he was glad I’d gotten the new badges.”

Around 1 a.m. on Dec. 24, Smith stopped a charcoal grey or black Chevy Suburban for weaving on Highway 64 near Cherry Road. The vehicle had a Tennessee temporary tag with a Sept. 9, 2009 expiration date.

Hogwood said Smith asked the driver to exit the vehicle after smelling an odor of alcohol.

Smith escorted the driver, who did not have a license, to the rear of the vehicle to administer a field sobriety test.

Hogwood said that the passenger then exited the vehicle and spurned Smith’s orders to return to the car.

After saying something in Spanish to the driver, the passenger lunged at Smith with a knife.

“He missed him by probably a fraction of an inch,” Hogwood said.

The driver then pulled out a gun and shot Smith in the chest.

Despite falling backward and striking his head on the asphalt, Smith was able to draw his weapon and fire one round at the driver.

“When he shot,” Hogwood said, “he heard somebody holler.”

The two men returned to the vehicle and sped away.

A Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy is reported to have seen the suspects’ vehicle minutes later turning south on a road just west of Highway 385.

“That was before the radio traffic came out to be on the look out,” Hogwood said. “(The deputy) didn’t know to stop the vehicle at the time.”

Noting that both suspects are Hispanic, Hogwood said the driver was 6 feet tall and had slick black hair shaved on both sides. A portion of the man’s hair was dyed red or orange; something Hogwood said could link him to the Surenos 13 Gang.

The passenger was around 5-foot-10 with a shaved head.

Smith, who has been with the department for 8 months, was examined at Baptist Memorial Hospital-East and released.

Hogwood said the officer’s badge very well could have saved his life. “Even if the vest stops the bullet from penetrating,” he noted, “the blunt force trauma can be deadly. More than likely, this would have been fatal. Even with the vest.”

Noting that Smith is still “a little sore,” Hogwood said the officer has been given some time off to heal, mentally and physically.

“God guided that bullet to the center of that badge,” the chief said. “I have no doubt.”

I’m guessing the badge acted like a trauma plate for the vest, but who knows. The statements were just made by the chief of police, not a vest expert or doctor.

I definitely would like to see video on the incident.