Monday in Lee County, Florida a legally-armed citizen fatally shot a man who was reportedly in the process of severely beating a sheriff’s deputy at an off-ramp along Interstate 75. WZVN News quoted one witness, identified as Shanta Holditch, who stated that the attacker pulled the deputy out of his patrol car, “throwing him to the ground and punching him in all different directions.” When the unidentified armed citizen ran up and order the suspect to stop his attack, Holditch explained, the suspect “refused to get off the officer and the officer kept yelling, ‘shoot him, shoot him, shoot him,’ and then he shot him. I think approximately three shots were heard.”
An on-line website, Blue Lives Matter, had this to say: “The investigation is continuing but reveals how important it is to have great citizens out there who care enough about their Law Enforcement Officer to put themselves at risk in protecting them. [The deputy] was transported to the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.”
This incident is beginning to get national attention. It is not the first time an armed citizen has come to the aid of a lawman. In July 2012, a gunman named Charles Ronald Conner killed two neighbors in a Texas trailer park, after which Early, Texas Police Sgt. Steven Means responded and came under fire from Conner, who was armed with a rifle. Pinned down, Means returned fire, but it was another neighbor, 66-year-old Vic Stacy, who grabbed a .357 Magnum and – because he had a better angle – shot Conner four times from a distance of about 150 feet, according to the account at PoliceOne. Conner fired back at Stacy, but Sgt. Means shot the gunman twice more, ending the gunfight.
Gun prohibitionists are uniformly mute following such incidents. Maybe it’s because they dare not say anything that might undercut their arguments against private gun ownership.
Monday’s incident, had the armed citizen not been there, might have turned deadly, anyway. The annual FBI Uniform Crime Report invariably shows that three to four times the number of people are murdered annually by beatings than are killed with rifles or shotguns. A lawman or woman can be disarmed and murdered with their own gun, as happened in Newcastle, Washington in June 2002. Deputy Richard Herzog was murdered by a naked man who, during a violent scuffle, was able to grab Herzog’s sidearm and shoot him several times.
Monday’s shooting incident is still under investigation. Based on what so far has been reported, it’s not clear why the confrontation occurred.
Reports say the suspect drove past an accident scene at a high rate of speed. The deputy pursued the vehicle down I-75 to the off-ramp where the confrontation occurred. The deputy was reportedly transported to a local hospital for treatment.
The armed citizen, according to various accounts, is legally-licensed to carry. Opponents of concealed carry and private gun ownership will likely continue their disarmament crusade, but lingering in the shadows of that debate will be this question: If it saves just one life…
