By Riley Yates
The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The shooting alongside Route 33 happened in a heartbeat. One moment, two Pennsylvania State Police troopers were trying to handcuff Daniel K. Clary. The next, he had run to his car, pulled a gun from it and began firing at them.
It was all captured on dashboard camera.
Clary with the gun, the two troopers scrambling to take defensive positions.
Clary standing by the driver’s side of his vehicle, firing at Cpl. Seth Kelly, who was on his belly and firing back, feet away on the other side of the car. Kelly seeking further cover, throwing himself over a guardrail on the side of the road.
That video was played Tuesday on the second day of Clary’s attempted murder trial in the shooting in Plainfield Township, where Kelly suffered grievous wounds that nearly killed him.
It showed Kelly and Trooper Ryan Seiple trying to place the struggling Clary under arrest as, authorities say, he tried to grab their service handguns and resisted even after they shocked him with stun guns and punched him repeatedly.
It was played during the often emotional testimony of Seiple, who took the witness stand in Northampton County Court to describe a routine traffic stop that suddenly turned so violent that, he said, he feared he would never see his family again.
Seiple fought tears as he remembered finding Kelly bleeding heavily on the embankment off the highway. Seiple recalled the frantic efforts to save Kelly by cinching a tourniquet around his thigh, where a bullet had severed his femoral artery.
“We were losing Cpl. Kelly. He was fading from us,” Seiple said.
For the testimony, Kelly was in the courtroom, though he and his family left when the video was played. Witnesses in a case are usually prevented from attending others’ testimony, but First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck said Clary’s lawyer agreed to Kelly’s presence, since he has no memory of the shooting and, when he is eventually called to the stand, would not be testifying about it as a result.
“This is actually the first time he sees or hears anything about this,” Houck told Judge Stephen Baratta.
Authorities say the Nov. 7 clash started with a traffic stop for speeding and a driver who acted strangely. But when Seiple and Kelly tried to arrest Clary on suspicion of driving under the influence of marijuana, police say, matters abruptly turned violent.
Defense attorney Janet Jackson says her client acted in self-defense after being shocked with Tasers, punched by police, and fearing that he would be shot. She describes Clary as a scared young man who was getting his first speeding ticket, then was surprised when troopers moved to take him into custody.
Clary, 22, of Chestnuthill Township was also wounded, driving himself to Easton Hospital. His injuries hospitalized him for five days, before he was transferred to Northampton County Jail.
There was nothing unusual about the stop, Seiple testified. It was so routine, he said, that he initially waved away a trooper who offered to back him up.
“Somebody had pulled behind me and I had indicated that it was OK. I didn’t need help in the traffic stop,” Seiple said.
Seiple said he had handed Clary his ticket and was starting to drive away, ending the encounter. But Clary then motioned for him to return, Seiple said.
It was when they spoke again, Seiple said, that he suspected Clary was impaired. Only then did he radio for backup, with Kelly arriving to help with field sobriety tests, Seiple said.
In describing the shooting, Seiple’s voice at times caught. He paused to gather himself. At one point, he dabbed his eyes with a tissue.
Seiple recalled his fear when, he said, Clary tried to first grab Kelly’s holstered handgun, then tried to grab Seiple’s. When Clary ran to his car and got his own gun and began firing, Seiple said he remembers picturing his daughter, then 2 months old, in his mind as he tried to find cover.
“I didn’t want to die in the highway, in the gravel I was crawling in,” Seiple said.
Seiple said he emptied two magazines of bullets at Clary before the defendant fled. The video showed both troopers firing into Clary’s car before he drove away, the shots shattering an ever-enlarging hole in his rear window.
“The threat was very real. I didn’t want to be taken from my family,” Seiple said.
Passer-by Paul Bernard Kennedy said he was driving south on Route 33 when he saw the two troopers struggling with Clary, trying to restrain him. Kennedy pulled over and dialed 911, knowing “they had no chance to call for backup.”
Kennedy said while he was on the phone, he heard gunshots. When Clary’s car sped away, Kennedy tried to follow, but couldn’t keep up, despite speeds of 110 to 120 mph, he said.
“The speed he was going was unbelievable,” Kennedy said of Clary.
Dr. James Cipolla, a trauma surgeon at St. Luke’s University Hospital, said that when Kelly arrived by helicopter, he was in full cardiac arrest.
“That means his heart had stopped and he was dead,” Cipolla said, estimating Kelly was in that condition at least five to 10 minutes.
The doctor said he was able to save Kelly by cutting open his chest, spreading his ribs, and massaging his heart to get it to beat.
Cipolla said Kelly had lost so much blood that he needed 60 units to replace it. By comparison, someone undergoing a “massive” transfusion typically receives six to 10 units of blood, he said.
Police interviewed Clary hours after the shooting, according to prior testimony. To authorities, Clary insisted the troopers were the aggressors, saying he feared for his life and claiming they fired first — which prosecutors say is contradicted by the video that captured the melee.
Days later, District Attorney John Morganelli cleared Seiple and Kelly of wrongdoing, saying they used “extreme restraint” during an encounter that escalated dramatically without warning.
In cross-examining Seiple, defense attorney Jackson noted that during the struggle, Clary never threw a punch. She underscored that the video recorded Clary moaning in pain — “yelping,” as she described it — after he was Tasered. She also highlighted that at the time Clary retrieved his gun, Seiple had a firearm trained upon him, though the trooper didn’t pull the trigger.
During the questioning, Jackson brought Seiple’s service handgun out from an evidence envelope and carried it to the witness stand. Its presence unnerved Seiple as Jackson moved it toward him.
“Please, just don’t point that at me,” Seiple said apologetically. “I know we checked it. It’s unloaded.”
Jackson left the gun in front of him as she returned to the defense table.
“Can we take that off of here, please?” a faltering Seiple said.
“I’m sorry,” Jackson said, asking: “Do you need a minute?”
Seiple said he was OK to proceed.
The trial is slated to last the entire week.
THE CASE
According to state police:
On Nov. 7, state Trooper Ryan Seiple stopped a car driven by Daniel Clary on Route 33 in Plainfield Township.
After Seiple became suspicious that Clary was driving impaired, he radioed for help and Cpl. Seth Kelly responded.
In the process of arresting Clary, a melee ensued and Clary went for a gun in his car and started firing at Seiple and Kelly, severely wounding Kelly.
Clary also was wounded and fled the scene, driving himself to Easton Hospital. He was arrested and charged with trying to kill Seiple and Kelly.
©2018 The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)