My daughter was t-boned by a police cruiser the night after Christmas. Luckily, she was not injured though the car sustained a good deal of damage. So did the sheriff deputy’s ego. She was on her way to meet friends for dinner, driving cautiously, doing all the right things. The deputy tried to make a left-hand turn into the back parking lot of the Greenville Law Enforcement Center. He didn’t see her coming in the right-hand lane when the driver in the left-hand lane thought he was doing him a favor by stopping. It was an accident, but she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or was she?
When I arrived on the scene and saw the amount of damage to
the car, a cold chill ran down my spine. But later on when I had time to
reflect, I realized that had she gone through that intersection just two
seconds sooner, she could have been seriously injured. The front end of the car
took the impact – a two-second difference and the impact would have been right
into the driver’s side door. So, if this accident was meant to happen, was she
really in the right place at the right time to come out unscathed?
On January 14, Wesley Swilling, 31, was in the wrong place at
the wrong time. At 3AM, he was in the parking lot of that same LEC. It wasn’t
the civilian parking lot; it was the parking lot in the back of the building,
one that is clearly marked for LEC personnel use only. According to the news accounts, he threw a
baseball at a city police officer heading to his car. That officer summoned the
attention of a sheriff’s deputy sitting in a nearby patrol car doing paperwork.
Together they took a stance and drew guns when they saw a weapon. By the
officers’ accounts, Wes came toward them in a threatening manner and stated he
was going to kill them. Feeling their lives were indeed in danger, they fired.
Wes Swilling died amid a hail of bullets, seven of them hitting him.
The “weapon” found near Wes was a glue gun, though it had
been taped and manipulated to look more like a real gun. It was a rainy, foggy
night making visibility poor. Wes was dressed in dark clothing. There are only
three people who will ever know the exact circumstances of that night, though
many assumptions will be made. If Wes Swilling was on a mission to end his own
life, he chose the right place at the right time to achieve that goal. Can we
conclude the two officers were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Though an
investigation concludes they followed proper police protocol, as human beings
do they question whether they could have handled things differently?
I cannot presume to know what was in Wes Swilling’s head the
morning he headed to the LEC parking lot. But I do believe I know where he may
have been emotionally. Some of us have been in that place before, the corner
where your demons push you so tightly you believe there is no way out. Too
often it results in a tragedy with a rippling effect that touches many lives.
If these words cross the path of anyone in Wes’s family,
please accept them in the spirit in which they are written. Though I did not know Wes personally, I am
close to many people who knew him well – including both my daughters who were
fellow classmates. My heart is heavy along with yours at your loss. Those who
knew him have told me of his sweet, caring personality. It was a vibrant life
lost much too early.
There are many people who loved Wes Swilling, his family and
friends alike. I hope they are able to find comfort in their memories of him.
And I hope that Wes is now in the right place at the right time to have found
his peace. God rest his sweet soul.
