Longtime friends died together
Law enforcement pair killed responding to domestic call
Since high school Nick Smarr and Jody Smith had been inseparable — roommates after graduation; classmates at the police academy in Georgia; and best friends who, at the end of every goodbye, said the words “I love you.”
They spent their free time cackling at inside jokes only they found funny and competitively comparing cop notes: who did more work, who answered more calls, who was the better police officer. When Smith set his wedding date for May 20 of 2017, he asked Smarr to be his best man.
It was for all these reasons that their families weren’t surprised to learn that on Wednesday morning, in what would become their final act as officers and men, Smarr and Smith were together.
At 9:30 a.m., Smarr, an Americus, Ga., police officer, was called to check out a domestic dispute at an apartment near Georgia Southwestern State University. Smith, a campus officer there, overheard the radio chatter and decided, despite the fact that other Americus officers were en route, to “back up his friend,” Americus Police Chief Mark Scott told a news conference.
What happened next was captured on body camera video, authorities said, and narrated in a Facebook post by Smarr’s uncle, Michael Waters, who confirmed the details with The Washington Post.
The two drove up separately. Smith swept around the back of the apartment while Smarr approached the slightly ajar front door, according to the online post. Smarr heard commotion inside, called out and entered, where he found a suspect he “immediately recognized,” the post said, a career criminal authorities identified as Minquell Lembrick. Also there was a woman and child, the victims from the domestic call, police said.
The man fled out the back door, Waters wrote, and Smarr followed. The suspect shot at the officers, striking both in the head before leaving the property, authorities said.
After shooting at the suspect, Smarr ran to Smith, according to the post, rolled him onto his back and performed CPR “until he could no longer.”
When backup officers arrived, they found the wounded men lying in the backyard — Smarr slumped over his best friend.
Smarr died soon after, authorities said, and Smith was airlifted to a Macon, Ga., hospital where, on Thursday, he died, too.
“Nick’s best friend is now in heaven with him,” a family member said on Facebook.
Of Smarr’s decision to administer CPR, his long-term girlfriend, Rachel Harrod, said: “Never been more proud to call someone mine.”
At a press conference, Chief Scott said the two men were “model officers” and “heroes.”
“I can’t say enough about them,” he said. “... They were there together, they were there together through it. And even after the shooting they were together.”
Police continued to search for Lembrick, the man accused of fatally shooting Smarr and Smith, and finally located him 24 hours later when a man phoned a law enforcement tip line and said he was hiding in a house in Americus. Officers, including the SWAT team, responded immediately.
As they set up a perimeter, Scott said they heard what sounded like a gunshot from inside.
For an hour, negotiators tried to coax the suspect out, but eventually used a robot to open the door, where officers found Lembrick dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Lembrick was a “career criminal” with a rap sheet 32 pages long, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan said at a press conference. At the time of the shooting, he was wanted for kidnapping and other charges, Scott told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. When asked by a reporter if Lembrick shouldn’t have been on the street, Keenan balked.
“I don’t pass judgments on the criminal justice system,” he said. “I just know that he was a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and he wreaked havoc on this community.”
News of Lembrick’s death broke just hours before authorities confirmed that Smith had also died.