Justice must be served for my brother in the case against former Southwestern police officer
Pursuing a conviction would be punishment for punishment’s sake.
These are the paraphrased words spoken by elected official District Attorney Dave Sunday regarding charges against former Southwest Regional Police Officer Stu Harrison.
Harrison is charged with simple assault in the shooting of my brother, Ryan Smith, in the leg. “Simple assault in the shooting in the leg” does not even encompass what happened that day May 30, 2018. My brother was released May 29, 2018, from a psychiatric hold at York Hospital against the pleading of my mom that he was still not stable for release.
He walked into the Santander Bank in Spring Grove and asked to withdraw money. He was told he needed ID since they had Ryan Smiths up and down the East Coast. In his mind, this was verifying his multiple accounts he believed he had. He became upset, and the cops were called.
After tasing my brother many times in the bank, they were able to handcuff and get him to the cop car. He was sitting handcuffed in the back of the car with his feet in the parking lot. By this time, my mom was at the bank begging the police to transport him to the hospital for his mental health needs. At this time, according to my mother, Stu Harrison told my mom if she wanted him to go to the hospital, she needed to help him get Ryan’s legs into the car.
With my mom on one side of my brother and Stu Harrison on the other, they were attempting to get his legs into the car. That’s when Stu Harrison, the officer who served as the firearms instructor for the police department, chose to take his service revolver from his hip, place it point blank on my handcuffed brother’s leg and pull the trigger.
My mother, still standing on the other side of my brother, was now covered in her son’s blood. Stu Harrison said he mistakenly took his service revolver out instead of his taser. At this point, my brother was a controlled, handcuffed man; even using a taser was an unnecessary assault.
My brother’s femoral artery was severed, he was losing blood fast, but by a miracle he arrived at the hospital with an oxygen saturation of 20% (as opposed to the optimal 100%). He was in surgery for many hours and survived. He was given an emergent blood transfusion with no time to match his blood type. Unfortunately, it was an incorrect match, and he suffered blood clots and further surgery from that. After a lengthy hospital stay, he was finally discharged home to the care of our mother with months of physical therapy ahead of him and a lifetime of mental trauma.
Let’s not forget the lesser mentioned victim in this senseless tragedy: my mom. She was standing near her son when Stu Harrison shot him point blank in the leg. Stu Harrison was the officer my mother was trusting to help her transport her son to the hospital to get the mental health treatment he still needed. According to my mom, this was after she petitioned the hospital the prior day to hold my brother longer, as he still needed medication adjustments, and was denied.
The tragedy that unfolded that day has affected many lives. The lack of proper mental health treatment is an ongoing epidemic that needs to be addressed. Police brutality and justice for those injured unjustly by the officers that are supposed to serve and protect them also needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, these two often go hand in hand, and those who suffer are some of the most vulnerable citizens who need them the most.
When the courts are again asked to drop the charges against Stu Harrison, please keep in mind the names Ryan Smith and Christine Smith — in fact, the entire family who has a great deal of suffering to work through and a lifetime of trauma at the hands of someone who was instead supposed to serve and protect.
Heather Ostendorff is the sister of Ryan Smith. She lives in New Jersey.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Justice must be served in the case of former Officer Stu Harrison
