I wasn't going to mention this again, but since another recent act of violence in a small town not far from here, I've had people asking me whatever happened with this, so I figured I'd get this all out at once.
The original thread is here:
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=16733.0I didn't want to go into any details then, because (A) the investigation was still ongoing and (B) it's not my favorite topic of conversation.
The investigation was concluded and the officer in question was cleared in December. The case is closed. That takes care of reason "A". This is a pre-emptive answer to the questions that are starting to be asked of me, because of reason "B".
Last August, I was on 75 meters with a few of you when several shotgun blasts rang out from a few houses over.
This wasn't exactly cause for alarm at first, as it's a small town, we all own firearms, and sometimes like to blow away empties in our back yards. It's America, we can still do that for now.
Hearing no screams, or anything to indicate anyone was hurt or in danger, I continued with the QSO. Several minutes later, I heard the ambulance take off from the fire station. Moments later, the siren stopped, but the ambulance had not gone past the house. I looked at the house across the street, and could see from the reflection in the windows that the ambulance was in front of our house.
My heart nearly stopped. Fearing the worst for my family, I immediately got off the air and ran towards the house. My parents were in the neighbors' driveway, looking down the road. By the time I got to them, a state trooper screeched to a halt in front of us, and told the EMT to have the road shut down immediately.
I returned to the shack long enough to tell everyone that we were okay, but had to go, and shut off the equipment.
As I was returning towards the house from the shack, I saw a county deputy sprint by the house with an M-16 to his shoulder, screaming "drop the weapon".
It turned out that they had the wrong guy at that moment. One of my other neighbors, knowing who the real shooter was and what he was like when he was drunk, had grabbed his own shotgun and was defending his family and property.
That scene was quickly defused, but nobody knew where the real shooter had gone.
At this point, I went to talk to some other neighbors who had been standing in their driveway and trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
As I was talking to them, I heard a voice down the street. I was facing my neighbors, who were standing between me and the site.
I won't go into details. Suffice to say, the real shooter was walking towards a state trooper with shotgun in hand. The trooper drew his sidearm, levelled it at him, and ordered him to drop the weapon several times. He stopped, but instead of dropping the weapon, he slowly rasied it towards the trooper. I was horrified, because I knew what was about to happen and knew nothing could stop it.
The trooper fired three rounds in rapid succession. At least two rounds struck him in the heart.
What happened over the next few seconds is better left unsaid. I'll just say that some things are even more humbling than watching a man get shot to death.
Fortunately, the people I was talking to hadn't turned around in time to see it, and my family was too far away to see it.
Forty minutes later, John Sullivan was dead, but not for lack of effort on the part of our local EMTs. They tried like hell to keep him alive, but couldn't. They had to stop and resuscitate him twice between the ambulance and the lifeflight helicopter that had landed across from our house. That is, they succeeded twice. The third time they could not.
I knew John, though I didn't know him particularly well. We would exchange small talk in line at the beer store. I would be buying a six-pack, he would be buying a case. He drank. A lot. He had recently been layed off from one job and had just started at another.
That day, he drank quite a bit (post-mortem blood tests put his blood alcohol content something like .26), then grabbed his shotgun and started beating his wife with the butt of it. Moments later, he had gone outside and just started squeezing rounds off. That's where the rest of us came in.
Emotions in this tiny town still run high. The trooper was cleared of any wrongdoing, and rightly so in my opinion. Others don't agree, but that's not a surprise. Most had never seen anyone die, let alone from another man's gun.
Knowing what I knew of John, I can only call what he did suicide-by-cop. He had basic military training, he knew full well what would happen if he raised his shotgun to an armed officer very, very slowly.
It's unfortunate that some people get the idea of dying "in a blaze of glory". Well, I've
seen it, folks. There's no glory in that, no honor, no courage. None. Only a deep, echoing sorrow for the widow, the daughter, and the neighboring children, all of whom saw what I saw. If only there was some way to give someone a brief glimpse of the real future, just moments before they force someone into the position of having to kill them.
If any of you
ever get the "blaze of glory" idea in your heads, even for a moment, I pray you remember that; and ask for help instead.
--Thom
