Wounded Police Officer Saved Life

‘Marc Hanly saved my life’ says friend of Norwood shooter
Delaware County Daily Times
Rose Quinn
POSTED: 09/07/15

For Corey Clark, it’s anybody’s guess what his friend Darrel Burt was thinking when he barricaded himself inside his Norwood apartment with two bottles of wine, two loaded .45-caliber handguns and an apparent broken heart.

Thursday night, the 25-year-old Darby Township man wasn’t interested in guessing games. Instead, he mainly wanted to express his heartfelt thanks to Ridley Park Police Officer Marc Hanly, whom he said “saved my life” when the bullets started flying in the hallway of the Mohawk Manor Apartments early on Aug. 30.

“It’s all been weighing heavy on me,” Clark said. He was referring to a dizzying confluence of events that left Hanly with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds in the chest and leg, and Burt, who’d been shot in the shoulder, behind bars at the county prison on four counts of attempted first-degree murder and related criminal charges.

A bartender, Clark downed a few beers after the late shift as he looked back on the life-altering ordeal, offering the vantage point as both good friend and near-victim of the accused gunman.

“Everyone in this situation is a victim. There’s no aggressor,” said Clark. “I wish we could just turn the clock back on this whole situation.”

Clark, who grew up in Prospect Park and graduated from The Christian Academy in Brookhaven in 2008, said he hasn’t been sleeping well since the incident.

A rough patch

All Clark knew as he drove from his Poplar Street row home in Briarcliffe to the apartment complex in the 600 block of Mohawk Avenue that night was Burt was in trouble — perhaps even suicidal, based on a pair of text messages he received from Burt, at 12:28 a.m. and again at 12:32 a.m.

“I’m freaking out in my mind and I’m calling him the whole way over,” Clark said of the about five-minute, 2.2-mile drive. “I called six or seven times. Darrel never answered.”

Clark said he was aware Burt, 36, apparently suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after his stint in the U.S. Army, but his behavior that morning was nothing like Clark had ever seen in the two years they had been friends.
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