Officer and WSU grad shot in line of duty released from hospital

A Fort Worth Police officer and Washington State University graduate who was shot seven times in the line of duty was released from the hospital Tuesday.

Members of the public came to greet Officer Matt Pearce when he was released, and he recorded a message for the people who helped him and his family during his recovery.

"Thank y'all," Pearce said in a video posted by his department. "Anytime you think you can't do it, just keep fighting. I did it, so anybody can do it if I can do it, that's for sure."

“Just keep up the fight, no matter how bad you think it is. Thank y’all for supporting me as much as you did, ‘cause one day I’m going to turn around and I’ll give back too.”

Fort Worth police said Pearce’s family “is very thankful for the outpouring support that our wonderful community has shown over the past two months.”

Earlier this month, Washington State University football coach Mike Leach and his staff sent a care package to Pearce.

“Thank you for laying it on the line,” Leach wrote in a handwritten note to Officer Matt Pearce, a 2002 WSU graduate. “We are all thinking about you here in Pullman and wishing you the best!”

With the letter Leach sent a Cougar sweatshirt, hat, T-shirts and other WSU gear. The Fort Worth Police Officers Association posted photos of the care package, calling it a class act.

Before he was shot in the March incident, Pearce was planning to repair his mother’s fence damaged by recent storms.

After Pearce was hospitalized in critical condition, community members stepped up to make the repairs.

Pearce, an officer in Fort Worth since 2009, spent weeks in intensive care. One of the bullets hit his liver and diaphragm, according to an officer support page, and Pearce also was hit in the cheek, arm, chest and leg.

Still, he tried to help the medics attending to him immediately after he was shot, explaining how to help.

“He’s a fighter through and through,” Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald told a Texas radio station days after the shooting.

More than $87,125 has been raised through a GoFundMe account to help Pearce, a father of two.

One of the suspects involved, a 43-year-old felon, was fatally shot by police. A handgun was found by his body. The felon’s 20-year-old son, who also was involved in the incident, has been charged with attempted murder, evading arrest and unlawful carrying of a rifle, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Cox Media Group