Louisiana CHL Saves Officer

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Officer Brian Harrison was escorting a funeral procession when a man broke into the procession. The officer pulled the man over and proceeded to write him a ticket; however, the man, who had a criminal record, became angry and attacked the officer - the officer managed to shoot him in the abdomen once but then his attacker was on top of him.

At this point, Perry Stevens, a local CHL, spotted the attacker on the officer's back pounding on him. He drew his pistol and ordered the man to stop and get off the officer. When the man continued to attack, he fired four rounds into his torso. Again, he ordered the man to stop and get off the officer; before firing a fifth round into the man's head to end the confrontation.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/26...attack-on-cop/

Some points I took from the story:

1. People who do rude things such as cut into funeral processions have already shown that they do not have a lot of respect for the social compact. While rudeness is certainly not uncommon in our society, it may be an early warning sign that you need to be more alert.

2. Handguns are not magical death rays. This man was shot 5 times in the torso and continued attacking a police officer with his bare hands. He didn't run and he didn't quit when shot. This wasn't some al-Quadea terrorist looking for 72 virgins; but just an irate low-level criminal who was getting a ticket and he went from being irate ticketed motorist, to making a committed effort to kill this police officer like that.

[Woody55]

If it hadn't been a police officer on the ground, I wonder if the shooter would have been charged.

Another interesting point raised by the article is the lack of coverage of the story in the national media. I recall an incident - maybe a year ago - when a girl was lauded in the national media for days for hiding and calling 911 when an intruder or two entered her home. At roughly the same time a boy grabbed his father's rifle when intruders entered his home and defended his mother by engaging in a gun fight with them throught the bedroom door. He and one of the intruders were wounded, but that wasn't national news.

One of the easiest ways for a media source to spin things (without telling a lie) is to simply choose what to cover and what not to cover. It's their privilege, and I wouldn't want it taken away, but it's why I try to learn what's going on in the world from several legitimate sources.

[Smilin Jack]

FYI....it was .45 acp with hydrashocks. Two shots would have been fatal but the fouth to the head ended the attack. Attackers girlfriend filed suit, legal nightmare began........etc, etc.

[Don H]

A great deal of detail about this 2006 homicide can be found here: http://www.theshootist.net/2009/01/o...-perry_12.html

[ScottRiqui]

A great deal of detail about this 2006 homicide can be found here: http://www.theshootist.net/2009/01/o...-perry_12.html

Thanks for that link - with all the blog/forum discussion in the past 24 hours about this shooting, I mistakenly thought it just happened over this past weekend.

[10-96]

Anybody find any link to how the lawsuit against Mr. Stevens turned out? Briefs should have been heard in Feb of this year.

[ltc444]

Awesome article. Thank you Don.

I am reminded of a different time when citizens were called upon to assist Law Enforcement in dangerous situations.

Prior to SWAT and officers were not equipped to handle dangerous situations Citizens stepped forward and did the heavy lifting for our LEOs.

In the 60s or early 70s a number of California Highway Patrol officers were killed by a bad guy. The BG barricaded himself in a nearby home and took hostages. An ordinary guy was returning from a hunting trip. The CHIPs requested his assistance. He dispatched the BG with one well placed shot from his hunting rifle.

He was awarded the highest award the CHIPs could give and presented with a new rifle.

To this day his name is unknown outside the participants and some very high ranking Police Officials.

I think Mr Stevens should join the "Hunter" as one of our heroes.

PS I apologize for not providing a link to the Hunter story. If someone else can provide one I would like to review the story.

[Aguila Blanca]

"Civilians" also took up much of the slack during the famous Texas tower sniper (Charles Whitman) episode.

[InigoMontoya]

[1. People who do rude things such as cut into funeral processions have already shown that they do not have a lot of respect for the social compact. While rudeness is certainly not uncommon in our society, it may be an early warning sign that you need to be more alert.]

Funeral processions seem to be regional. I was in my 20s (and far from my normal stomping grounds) the first time I saw one (and I haven't seen one in probably 15 years). I was like, "*** is that??" I would have thought no more of cutting into a funeral procession than I would have thought of cutting into any other traffic simply because I had no idea what one was. Granted, in this case the cutter was a Bad Guy, but from my experience it's just as possible that he simply wasn't from a region where funeral processions are "normal."

[Double Naught Spy]

I don't know about CHiP, but there is this oft-repeated story in Texas about Trooper Long being killed and a deer hunter killing the killer...
http://www.odmp.org/officer/8242-pat...y-charles-long

No deer rifle, but ... There was also the more recent Texas incident(Jan. 21, 1994), recounted in Robert Waters' The Best Defense, of Travis Dean Neel saving the life of Harris County Deputy Frank Flores. Flores had stopped a stolen Jeep Cherokee with three members of a car-theft ring inside. Flores was shot four times. Neel had two 9mm pistols in his truck, and multiple loaded magazines, which he used to drive the thieves away. Neel was proclaimed by the Harris County Deputy Sheriffs Union to be "Citizen of the Year, 1994."

(I read the book some years ago, but took the summary from elsewhere online. It sounds about right. The only thing I recall in addition to this is that another citizen offered Neel her gun to help, not that she was going to shoot. Neel was recovering from heart problems and had finally been given permission to return to shooting and was on the way to the range with a pistol and unloaded mags when he spotted the event and had to keep stopping to manually load mags before reloading his gun. Must have been a long fight.)