Officer Harbour was in the right place at the right time
Somehow it always seems that when taking time off or a vacation big news stories tend to break.
I hadn’t taken a vacation since the end of last year and decided to take one last week (which was supposed to be the week after getting married, which did not happen due to the coronavirus).
It was a refreshing stay-athome vacation until some big news broke Thursday night.
Late that night, I began getting texts from my co-worker, Mike Gwizdala, about a domestic incident that turned into a fatal incident in the Collar City.
At first, I figured it ended up being a homicide and was then shocked as details came out about exactly what occurred that night.
City police said they received several calls to a domestic incident on the second floor of a residence at 2342 17th St. The incident happened around 6:07 p.m. on Thursday.
It was kind of a relief to then hear that an off-duty Troy police officer actually lived in that same apartment building and heard the commotion and took matters into his own hands to save someone’s life.
Officer Adam Harbour shot and killed, Colin E. Davis, 25, after reportedly telling Davis to drop the knife and stop stabbing the female victim.
At a time when police around the country are dealing with a lot of scrutiny with using deadly force, I’m pretty sure that many people would agree that Officer Harbour did the right thing and saved the victim’s life.
If Officer Harbour was not home or on-duty that day, then it would be quite possible that the female victim would have been killed instead of the assailant.
It’s too bad that both lives couldn’t have been saved, but when Davis did not stop stabbing the victim after Harbour came to the scene, Harbour had to make a split-second decision, which was to either watch the victim continue to get stabbed and eventually be killed or take action to prevent the victim from dying.
Police officers have to deal with a lot and have to make many split-second decisions during their career and Officer Harbour made the right decision to intervene. If Harbour had just tried to remove Davis away from the victim then he could have been stabbed himself.
I know the investigation will be ongoing and be investigated by the New York State Attorney General’s Office, however, from what has been reported so far, I believe Officer Harbour should not be prosecuted. He did what he had to do in order to save someone’s life.
Nick on the Record appears in print every Wednesday. Nicholas Buonanno is the assistant senior editor for The Record and can be reached at nbuonanno@ medianewsgroup.com