Injured deputy to spend Christmas in Charlotte

Staff Reports

The News Herald

Published: December 23, 2007

It looks like the sheriff's deputy injured in the standoff Dec. 11 will spend Christmas at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

Martin Lawing is still in critical condition and in the Intensive Care Unit, said Sheriff John McDevitt.

Lawing, the son of John and Jane Lawing of Marion, graduated from McDowell High School in 1994 and completed his basic law enforcement training at McDowell Technical Community College. He has been employed with the Burke County Sheriff's Office for five years.

A press release from Detective Austin Hensley said, due to Lawing's ever-changing condition, his wife, Leslie, temporarily left her job as a nurse at The McDowell Hospital.
The couple has a 2-year-old daughter.

Lawing, a member of the SWAT team, was shot in the neck while trying to make contact with a woman who shut herself in her home for 13 hours.

Sheriff's deputies were trying to serve the woman, Eva Joyce Nelson, 60, with involuntary commitment papers.

The Morganton-Burke Fraternal Order of Police have started a fund to help Lawing's family get through this time and pay for expenses.

Checks can be made out to the Fraternal Order of Police with "For the Martin Lawing fund" in the memo portion of the check. Send donations to: Fraternal Order of Police, P.O. Box 1216, Morganton, NC, 28655.