In mid-November of 2016 in Lee County, Florida, a man led a sheriff’s deputy on a chase at speeds exceeding 100 miles an hour. At the end of the pursuit, the driver dismounted and attacked the deputy. He had the lawman down and was beating him savagely when a passerby with a concealed-carry permit rushed to his aid. The situation degraded further, and the armed citizen was forced to shoot and kill the offender. At his request, the name of the rescuer has not been released to the public as of this writing. [Editor’s note: The concealed carrier has since been identified as Ashad Russell]. Far from getting into trouble with the law over it, the armed citizen was hailed by the sheriff for his courage, and for saving the life of his deputy. A local gun shop provided a brand-new Springfield Armory pistol to the rescuer, to replace his own pistol that had gone into evidence as part of the investigation. His act is a classic example of a good armed citizen saving a cop from a bad guy. Call it Case One.
In 2012, in the town of Early, Texas, Case Two saw an armed citizen save the life of a police officer. The citizen, Vic Stacy, was in the same RV park as a crazed man who went on a rampage and started killing other people in the park with a 9mm pistol. By the time the first responding officer got there, the killer had upgraded to a lever-action .30-30 rifle with a telescopic sight. The arriving cop came under fire. He grabbed his AR-15, and keeping his patrol car between himself and the murderer, returned fire.
Unfortunately, the killer was behind a big tree, and large trees stop .223 Remington bullets more effectively than police cars stop .30-caliber rifle rounds. The policeman was in a bad situation when Vic Stacy came to the rescue. Using a 6-inch-barreled, .357 Magnum Colt Python revolver (pictured) from some 50 or 60 yards away, Stacy shot and wounded the would-be cop-killer, who toppled out from behind his cover as he fell. Down but not quite out, the gunman was still trying to shoot the officer from the ground, but now the officer had a clear line of fire. He and his AR-15 finished the fight, permanently neutralizing the murderer.
Did Stacy get in trouble with the law over that? Au contraire. The governor of Texas himself reportedly presented Stacy with a new AR-15 rifle—an appropriate thanks for saving the life of an embattled law enforcement officer.
Case Three went down some years before that in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2005, a motorcycle officer was escorting a funeral procession through the city when a seemingly random motorist broke into the procession. The officer pulled him over. The motorist began exhibiting aberrant behavior and things quickly escalated. Soon, the officer was down and being beaten by a much stronger man who, some would say later, was a steroid abuser in the grip of “roid rage.”
The assailant tried to take the officer’s gun. The desperate cop fired his issued Glock 22 (pictured), pumping a .40-caliber bullet into the attacker’s abdomen. There was no visible effect. The officer was clearly losing the fight.
Perry Stephens, an armed citizen with a concealed-carry permit, saw what was happening. Despite being in a full neck and back cast, Stephens retrieved a Sig Sauer P220 (pictured) in .45 ACP from his car and intervened. He ordered the assailant to stop attempting to take the officer’s gun, and when words proved futile and the attacker gained control of the officer’s Glock pistol, Stephens fired.
The attacker took four .45 ACP slugs to the body without abating the assault. Stephens had no choice but to shoot the man in the head with his fifth bullet. This ended both the attack and the life of the attacker.
Case Four unfolded in the summer of 2016 in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Once again, a crazed attacker—this one reportedly on meth—had managed to overpower a uniformed policeman and was going for his service pistol. An armed citizen intervened, taking the suspect at gunpoint before he could finish gaining control of the service pistol he was in the act of snatching from the officer’s holster. In this case, the suspect was wise enough to cease hostilities, raise his hands and surrender. Dylan Deboard, the concealed-carry permit holder who used his gun to save this policeman’s life, was presented with Mount Vernon’s “Citizens Award for Valor.”
Law-abiding citizens using guns to help police officers survive is nothing new. Case Five goes back to 1934, when Herbert Youngblood and the notorious John Dillinger (pictured) escaped together from the Crown Point, Indiana, jail. Youngblood, who had been awaiting trial for murder, made his way to Port Huron, Michigan. There, he entered a small family-owned convenience store and exhibited such bullying behavior that store personnel called the police.
Three lawmen responded. Youngblood turned out to be carrying two semi-automatic pistols. The officers, searching him as they took him into custody, found only one—and suddenly he whipped out the second and opened fire. The cops shot back. The hail of bullets from the murder suspect’s 10-shot Savage .32 mortally wounded one officer and hit two more, and though Youngblood himself had been wounded, he was still in the fight and shooting.
Eugene Fields, the storekeeper’s son, saw a dropped police service revolver on the floor and quickly snatched it up. He used it to shoot Herbert Youngblood, and it was that righteous gunfire that ended the desperate shootout. Eugene Fields was credited with saving two already wounded officers from a proven cop-killer.
We can go back further with Case Six. In October of 1881, the notorious gunfight near the OK Corral took place in Tombstone, Arizona (pictured). In the space of half a minute, three members of the Clanton Gang were dead or dying. On the lawmen’s side, police chief Virgil Earp was tottering on a leg wound and special officer Morgan Earp was down, wounded in the shoulder and back. Armed citizen John “Doc” Holliday had killed antagonist Tom McLaury and helped to kill Frank McLaury. Holliday had sustained a minor hip injury while only Wyatt Earp stood unhurt.
One gang member, Billy Clanton, was down but not yet out, as he still held a Colt .44-40 revolver. C.S. “Buck” Fly, the owner of an adjacent photography studio, rushed out of his business with a Henry rifle and, holding the mortally wounded Clanton at gunpoint, disarmed him of what turned out to be an empty gun. It would be foolish to doubt that the law enforcement side appreciated the timely assistance of Fly and particularly Doc Holliday.
In mid-November of 2016 in Lee County, Florida, a man led a sheriff’s deputy on a chase at speeds exceeding 100 miles an hour. At the end of the pursuit, the driver dismounted and attacked the deputy. He had the lawman down and was beating him savagely when a passerby with a concealed-carry permit rushed to his aid. The situation degraded further, and the armed citizen was forced to shoot and kill the offender.
At his request, the name of the rescuer has not been released to the public as of this writing. [Editor’s note: The concealed carrier has since been identified as Ashad Russell]. Far from getting into trouble with the law over it, the armed citizen was hailed by the sheriff for his courage, and for saving the life of his deputy. A local gun shop provided a brand-new Springfield Armory pistol to the rescuer, to replace his own pistol that had gone into evidence as part of the investigation. His act is a classic example of a good armed citizen saving a cop from a bad guy. Call it Case One.
Scroll through the gallery above for six examples of an armed citizen saving a cop from a bad guy. Historically, law enforcement personnel and armed citizens have always been natural allies against violent criminals. The half-dozen cases I’ve offered here only represent a few examples of this particular phenomenon.
This article was originally published in ‘Combat Handguns’ May/June 2017. To subscribe, visit outdoorgroupstore.com.
