It’s not often that you hear about an active shooter event wherein the victims voluntarily showed up and were consciously aware that they were going to be involved in a violent event, and in fact they had planned to commit some of the violence themselves. That was, however, just the situation on January 28, 2018. Five people showed up at the Ed’s Car Wash located in the Melcroft community section of Saltlick Township in Pennsylvania. Their intent was to fight - hand to hand - one other person in an on-going domestic related dispute. The one other person didn’t show up for a fist fight. Instead, he showed up in body armor (the carrier but not the ballistic panels, which meant it could only be worn for visual intimidation or to carry spare ammunition) and carrying two rifles along with one handgun.
The perpetrator, Timothy O’Brien Smith had previously been romantically involved with one of the victims, Ms. Chelsie Cline. Cline had arrived at the Carwash with her then current boyfriend, William Porterfield along with her brother, Seth Cline, her friend Cortney Snyder and another woman this author could not find a name for. She’s listed as “unidentified” in every report accessible for research.
Reports indicate that there had been an altercation between Porterfield (current boyfriend) and Smith (former boyfriend) earlier that morning that was caught on video and showed Smith attacking Porterfield from behind. While no further information is available about that altercation, obviously both men walked away able to function as they showed up later in the day - Porterfield with several others in tow - to fight it out.
One has to wonder about the wisdom of bringing the target of domestic obsession to the fighting grounds and why that particular location was picked. Porterfield and Smith showed up to fight. Seth Cline, the brother of Chelsie, potentially eager or at least willing to defend his sister and her boyfriend from the ex-boyfriend, Smith, is even understandable in his presence. Assuming Porterfield, Seth Cline and Smith as the intended combatants, the presence of Chelsie Cline, Cortney Snyder and the unidentified woman makes no sense to this author unless Porterfield and Seth Cline simply wanted witnesses for their victory. And they had to go into the event assuming victory would be theirs. After all, there were two of them to Smith.
Unfortunately for them, they brought fists to a gun fight. They may have had other weapons available but they didn’t get to use them. Smith reportedly opened fire on Chelsie Cline and Porterfield first as they exited the sedan they had arrived in. Smith shot at them with both one rifle - an AR-15 and the handgun, not specified beyond being of 9mm caliber. Then he turned and attacked Seth Cline and Cortney Snyder where they sat in Seth’s pickup truck. In the course of firing at them, he also hit the unidentified woman who was sitting in the backseat of Seth’s truck. That woman survived her injuries and was released from the hospital after treatment and recovery.
Smith then turned the rifle on himself, shooting himself once in the head. He survived this self-inflicted wound long enough to be transported to the hospital and treated, but died later that evening.
While many subject matter experts on the topic of active shooter events and response to such will argue that a lot of them are preventable, this one absolutely was. How? By someone checking their ego enough to call the police. Instead of five “adults” showing up to a Carwash parking lot with the intent of fighting, fully aware that any one of them could be bringing a gun (because if you don’t realize that in today’s reality then you’re delusional), any one of them could have said, “Nope. This is a bad idea. Let’s call the police (or sheriff) and report Smith’s assault on Porterfield and leave the authorities to deal with it.”
That said, everyone there showed up voluntarily and with full awareness of the intended conflict. At least three of the six involved planned to participate in violent acts. One of the reasons this event likely didn’t make national news, is because it would be hard for any reporter to spin this as a collection of innocent people gunned down for no apparent reason. The one potentially innocent victim was the unidentified woman in the backseat of Seth’s truck - and she survived.
Joshua Borelli
Joshua Borelli has been studying active shooter and mass attack events over the course of the past several years, commensurate with receiving training on response and recovery to natural disasters and civil disturbances. Joshua started to outline this series of articles in an attempt to identify commonalities and logistical needs patterns for response.
