On Tuesday night, July 27, the bizarre spectacle of a car, with one tire so damaged that it was riding on just the rim, pulling into the Shasta Regional Medical Center and a young man, with a small child in tow, entering the emergency room bleeding from a nearly completely severed finger and a facial laceration, resulted in a call to Redding Police.
Officers responded at 8:45 pm, and according to Sergeant Todd Cogle of the Redding PD, took the statement of 28-year-old Michael Miles Smith. He said that he had been in a fight with a former roommate, 19-year-old Jordan Meshawn Carter, who had slashed his tire and then thrown the knife at him. When Smith tried to block the knife, he said, his finger was cut severely, and the knife hit him in the head.
Smith lives, and the attack happened, at one of these small homes on Hawthorne Ave.
Smith lives at a small home on Hawthorne Avenue, in the Woodside Meadows area of Redding, near the Interstate 5 and Highway 44 interchange, just south of the Shasta Mall. That was where the incident had occurred.
Smith’s own troubles with the law include an arrest in August of 2012 for domestic violence – battery on a spouse or co-habitant. Later that year, on Christmas day, he was arrested for loitering or prowling on private property. The following November he was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a probation violation, and cited by Redding police with a promise to appear in court. Redding police arrested him again in April of this year on a failure to appear warrant. Most recently, on June 17, police detained him and another man, Christopher Alan Gilmore, a Redding transient, at 1:57 am at the Union 76 Gas Station and Food Mart. Smith was cited on another outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court, and Gilmore was booked into Shasta County jail on a parole violation for past narcotics and resisting arrest charges.
The knife throwing suspect, Jordan Carter, was located at a home on Sporting Court in the Riverland Estates area of Redding, about 3 miles southwest of the incident, near Juniper Elementary School. He was arrested and brought in to the Redding Police Department, and after being advised of his rights, interviewed about the incident.
After taking the two men’s statements and talking to other witnesses, the police investigators put together the story of the fight between them. Sergeant Cogle told the Record Searchlight that when the two men were living together they had argued over issues like closing doors and letting flies in the small house. When Carter came there on Tuesday, the fight between them became escalated. Carter pulled out a large knife, and then Smith grabbed a tire iron, and struck the younger man in his right eye. He said he feared for his life, and with his child in the car, Smith then tried to get away.
Michael Smith – image Facebook
But before Smith could drive off, Carter used his knife to slash the left rear tire. He then threw the knife at Smith in the car. As Smith tired to block it, his left hand’s middle finger took the brunt of the blow, while it also struck his head. Despite the flattened tire, Smith headed out as fast as he could, driving up Churn Creek Road and over to Highway 44 across the Sacramento River to the Shasta Regional Medical Center, his tire shredding down to just a rim and his finger attached to his hand by only a small piece of flesh.
When Carter was interviewed, he confessed that he had tried to kill Smith. He stated that he regularly practiced knife throwing, and that he knew that a wound to the head or torso might be deadly. He also knew there was a child in the car who would be in danger of the knife or a potential accident if Smith was wounded or killed while driving. Despite this, Carter said he threw the knife anyway, even though a “voice inside his head” was telling him not to.
Jordan Carter was booked in charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, mayhem, terrorist threats, and child endangerment. Those charges, along with two misdemeanor warrants, resulted in his being held, on over half a million dollars required for his release on bail. It has not been determined if Smith’s finger will be successfully re-attached.
Read More: Redding Record Searchlight
