PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP -- A man from Lackawanna County was making his regular commute Tuesday morning and saw the scuffle and shooting incident involving Pennsylvania State Troopers.
Frank Cali drives from Old Forge to the Bethlehem area several times a week for work. He says traffic on Route 33 was slowed to a crawl Tuesday morning and he watched from his car window as a terrifying scene unfolded.
Cali's daily commute from Lackawanna County to Northampton County was going to take a little longer Tuesday morning traffic was at a crawl for what he thought was a crash.
Instead, he saw two state troopers' patrol cars and another car on the side of Route 33 near Bethlehem and two troopers struggling to control a man.
"The two officers had the man on the ground and they were struggling with the guy. Generally, they have them face down, but he was face up and, I don't know if he was swinging at them or what. I could tell he had already been tasered, I could see it, sticking out of the guy's side," Cali recalled.
That man was Daniel Clary, now facing charges of attempted murder of a police officer for what happened next.
State police say Clary was able to break free, get his gun from his car, and shoot at the two troopers, critically wounding one of them.
"I was going to stop and help, they obviously needed another person, but I figured, between them having him on the ground, he was tasered, and there was a state trooper only a mile back, I figured he was already on the way. I thought it was best that I didn't get involved," Cali said.
Cali says the shooting must have taken less than a minute because as soon as he passed the struggle, he saw Clary's car again.
Dashcam video from a Newswatch 16 viewer shows the Pontiac speeding up the shoulder with its back window shot out.
"When you're in the moment, it's scary but you don't realize how scary it really is until you get all the facts and then, I'm like, 'I'm really glad I didn't stop now.'"
Cali says he couldn't have imagined that what he witnessed would end the way it did. He's comforted to know that the trooper who was shot is recovering.
"It's a situation that, unfortunately, is becoming too common. There isn't the respect for the law that there used to be."
Cali says Clary, got off the highway at his exit near Bethlehem. Police say Clary drove himself to the hospital and Cali judges that Clary was going well over 100 miles per hour.