Ashley Smith and the Power of Pacifism

By Colman McCarthy

Pacifists know when it’s coming: the eternal “what would you do if” question. As in, what would do if an escaped killer came into your home? What then?

Questioners aren’t looking for answers. They’re making a statement: when you’re in a crisis situation, nonviolence is useless, either as a tactic or a belief. A killer enters your home? Odds on, you’re dead.

So it seemed for a few hours in mid-March in Atlanta for Ashley Smith. The 26-year-old single mother found herself alone in her apartment with an accused killer, Brian Nichols. A massive manhunt, complete with Swat teams, helicopters, dogs and swarms of reporters, was underway for a man who allegedly shot to death a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal agent.

On the lam, and seeking a haven, Nichols happened upon Smith at 2 a.m. and tailed her to her home. Confronted with the intruder, who she recognized as the accused escaped killer, Smith had three options: fight, flight or friendship. Each was high-risk. She went with friendship. She began talking to Nichols, one human being to another. She spoke of her little girl, her faith. She made pancakes for the man. “You’re here in my apartment for some reason,” she told him. “Your miracle could be…that you need to go to prison and you need to share the world of God…there.”

The media haven’t reported whether or not Ashley Smith is a pacifist. But her method of survival places her among those who believe that a calculated nonviolent defense has the best chance for success.

Two kinds of personal pacifism exist: practical and spiritual. In practical pacifism, the person under threat sees that the oppressor is too physically strong or too armed: a violent defense is likely to meet with greater violence, and probably death. Try to flee? The attacker is ready for that, and you’ll likely be gunned down or runned down.

That leaves the third defense: disarm the adversary by saying something unexpected. When teaching in a prison a few years ago, I asked an inmate—an experienced street mugger—what’s the best defense if I met someone like him on the outside? “Look the thug in the eye and say, ‘Jesus loves you and so do I.’ And then hug him.”

Practical pacifism is how Ashley Smith defended herself. She survived. Probably without realizing it, she then moved to a higher plane and adopted spiritual pacifism: she wanted to survive and she wanted Brian Nichols to survive also. An opportunity to call the policed came when the two left the apartment, with Smith in her vehicle following Nichols in his. She didn’t use her cell phone, fearing that Nichols, and perhaps others, would be killed in a bloody highway shootout. Instead she drove the accused killer back to her apartment. Soon after, Nichols let her leave. Then she called police. Nichols surrendered peacefully.

Nonviolent defenses offer no guarantees. But neither do violent defenses. With some 22,000 homicides annually, obviously no defense—violent or nonviolent—will work. On the surface, the pancake defense or the Jesus defense border on the foolhardy. But what if Ashley Smith tried to scratch out the eyes of Nichols? Or wait until he looked away and crashed a chair over his head. Would that have worked? Not likely. Would he become enraged and be moved to kill her? Probably.

The pacifism of Ashley Smith was the opposite of passivity. It was, in true Gandhian fashion, direct action. She used moral force to disarm a dangerous man who had only physical force, which proved inferior.

Colman McCarthy directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington DC. He teaches nonviolence at three public high schools and Georgetown University, American University and Catholic University.