David Stott sent his family to the basement and watched police try to save one of their own
www.syracuse.com
Two cops died on his lawn. Rescue attempt was ‘nothing short of heroic and horrifying’
Updated: Apr. 15, 2024, 3:54 p.m.|
Published: Apr. 15, 2024, 1:48 p.m.
David Stott’s 9-year-old daughter insisted the “pop, pop, pop, pop” she heard after her bath Sunday night was firecrackers. Her father knows about guns.
“Honey, those are bullets. That’s ammunition,” he said.
Get in the basement, he told her. He yelled to his 19-year-old stepson and his wife.
Stott put a bulletproof vest under his shirt. He peered out the window of his home office, on Driftwood Drive in Salina.
He saw a man lying in the grass on his lawn. He watched police start giving aggressive chest compressions. For about six minutes, five officers took turns. More and more and more police and ambulances arrived.
He thought the dead man was the bad guy. He was filled with anger. Someone drove violence into a neighborhood full of families.
“You came into my neighborhood, you threaten all the families, everybody I know around here,” he said he thought.
When paramedics took the man away, Stott said he went outside to thank them for catching a criminal. That’s when they told him the man they tried to save was their colleague.
“All of a sudden, you find out it’s a police officer and it just kills you,” he said Monday morning.
He said he noticed a second man had been killed on the other side of his corner lot.
A Syracuse police officer and an Onondaga County Sheriff’s deputy died in Stott’s yard Sunday evening. They had exchanged gunfire with a suspect in a car chase, who was also killed. He has been identified as Christopher R. Murphy, 33, of Salina.
Stott said he knows the Murphy family, who have been neighbors for about 20 years. He said the parents are out of town.
“They’re wonderful people, the ‘big candy bar on Halloween’ people,” he said.
The officers have not yet been identified.
Police worked the rest of the night to make sure there was no more danger in the neighborhood. For a long time, it was unclear whether a second person was in the house, he said.
Stott said the SWAT team set up a command center on his lawn. He ran cords from the house for their bright lights. He dug up some AAA batteries. He set up a table and brought out bottles of water. He offered his bathroom.
He called the scene “Nothing short of heroic and horrifying.”
Sheriff Toby Shelley arrived. Stott, a former town councilor and county legislator, has known Shelley for two decades. Stott said he watched Shelley collect information and delegate dozens and dozens of officers from many departments.
“We sat outside and we talked for a little bit.” he said. “He was cool, calm and collected.”
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon arrived, Stott said.
“These are all good people,” he said.
Stott sat on his porch for hours. At about 5:30 a.m., he went to bed.
When he woke, he saw the officer’s blood on his lawn.
There is more blood in the street, where paramedics tried to save him.
At about 8:30 a.m., neighbors and kids gathered in his driveway to figure out where the school bus would pick them up, just steps away from the scene.
Stott is president of the homeowners association. Neighbors continue to call and text and share their stories. A 10-year-old saw emergency workers try to save the officer’s life, one parent told Stott. The whole thing is surreal and weird, he said.
“I’m an adult and I’m having a really hard time processing it,” he said.
Stott was still standing on the front porch this morning. He thought about how he will never be able to mow the lawn without remembering what happened. He thought about how police officers deserve more than this.
“The most important thing I think everyone needs to do is pray for these police officers and pray for police officers every day,” he said. “This is not a normal career.”
