Mount Vernon officer wounded on the job speaks first sentence

Mount Vernon police Officer Mike McClaughry, who was shot in the head during a call in December, spoke his first sentence Thursday.

"He said, 'I will be glad when I feel better,'" McClaughry's brother, Steve, said Friday during a news conference at Harborview Medical Center. "We just stepped back and went, 'Wow, did you hear that?' I was shocked he could put a sentence together."

The officer's daughter said McClaughry is starting to smile and it is clear he can understand what they are saying.

"He'll have moments of semi-consciousness. He'll smile most of the time when we tell a joke or razz him a bit because that's how our family is. He'll get a big smile from ear to ear, " said April McClaughry. "It feels like you're getting your dad back."

McClaughry, 60, was moved out of the intensive care unit into an acute care unit at Harborview Medical Center on Wednesday.

Dr. Randy Chesnut, a UW professor of neurological surgery, said McClaughry is making progress. He said it is hard to quantify but said McClaughry is in serious condition.

The veteran officer is in and out of consciousness and doctors are taking his recovery day by day. McClaughry has a blood clot in a major artery in his brain. Doctors say swelling has gone down.

"He's opening his eyes. He was smiling today, appropriately, to things being said as if he was kind of sharing an internal joke with us. Those are hopeful," said Dr. Randy Chesnut.

McClaughry's family says the fact that he can smile and even speak lets them know he is able to hear.

He is also able to follow some commands.

There is a fundraiser for McClaughry at 5 p.m. Jan. 14 at the Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon. A family friend, actor Chad Lindberg, is holding a screening of The Fast and the Furious movie, in which he plays a role. Click here to see how to buy tickets.

McClaughry was shot when he responded to call in Mount Vernon on Dec. 15. The bullet hit him in the head.

Ernesto Rivas, 44, was arrested in McClaughry's shooting. According to court papers, he fired from inside the house, where he was holed up with two teenagers.

>> Related: Man, 2 teens charged in shooting of Mount Vernon officer

Police say it was those two teenagers who initially brought police to the scene.

Police say 16-year-old Austin Gonzales and a 15-year-old boy shot another teenager, 18-year-old Kyler Vallejo, nearby.

Then, according to charging documents, the two teens went to the house and shot at police, along with Rivas, for several hours.

Originally thought to be hostages, police negotiators say the teenagers could be heard laughing.

>> Related: Family members: Mount Vernon officer 'breathing well on his own'

Prosecutors say the two teenagers and Vallejo, who they allegedly shot in the neck, are in rival gangs. Vallejo is expected to survive.

Rivas and the two teens are charged with attempted first-degree murder for shooting McClaughry in the back of the head.

The teenagers are also charged with attempted murder in the second degree in the shooting of the other teen.

>> Related: Doctors: Mount Vernon officer shot showing signs of ‘incremental' improvements

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