Citizen assists officer in Texas shootout

[Snowman366]

This occurred a few days ago in Brownwood, Texas at an RV park. I got a contact there who told me about it. The bad guy, one Charles Conner, got annoyed because some out-of-state couple's two dogs were pooping in Conner's front yard. Conner initially yelled at them, and then shot and killed the couple with a handgun, then shot their dogs.

An Early, TX patrol officer showed up in response to the 911 call(s), and Conner started shooting at him with a .30-30 rifle. The officer responded with his AR-15. Another resident of the RV park got his .357 magnum revolver and, reportedly from over 150 yards away, began to fire at Conner to keep him from killing the lone police officer. Not sure about where all the suspect was hit, but he was killed in the gunfight. Here's the link:

http://www.brownwoodtx.com/police/artic ... f887a.html

Here is a link to an interview with the good ol' boy who gave the Early patrol officer a hand with his .357 revolver. The ol' boy says it was about 165 yards. My contact said it was 150 yards at least, and probably more:

http://www.brownwoodtx.com/news/local/y ... 963f4.html

I think we made a big mistake by eliminating the 50 yard line in routine police qualifications. Some places are even eliminating the 25 yard line. A modern day 18-wheeler rig is almost 25 yards long, and a bad guy at the front of a semi rig, and an officer behind his car in the rear, would easily be 25 yards distance. Officers, in fact all defensive shooters, should be familiar with shooting at targets at 50 yards and even farther.

The patrol officer engaged his attacker with his AR rifle from a distance of 55 yards.

The sturdy citizen who gave the officer a hand was reportedly using an S&W N-frame revolver with a 6-inch barrel. He doubtless has spent his fair share of time plinking at jackrabbits at long range, like the menfolk frequently do in that neck of the woods. Your EDC weapon system is often capable of far more than you might give it credit for, if you only devote the time needed to master it. Sort of like a rifled slug from a smoothbore shotgun.

We all need to get better with what we carry. Never know when you'll need it.

 

[nitesite]

Thanks, Keith, for posting this. After you sent me the email yesterday about this OIS I thought this would make a real interesting thread here.

Hooray for good guys who are both in and out of uniform!

 

[oli700]

I think we made a big mistake by eliminating the 50 yard line in routine police qualifications. Some places are even eliminating the 25 yard line.

Why have a rifle then? That is ridicules, what is the reasoning behind that?

Around here it is not uncommon for anyone, aside from the city sheep, to be able to hit a moving target at 100 yards. Most of the police problems here aren’t in town, but in the sticks……

 

[Snowman366]

The excuse I was given by the state POST committee for eliminating the 50 yard line for qualifications was "most shooters are using Glocks nowadays...and Glocks aren't 50 yard guns". (Whatever.) Now there are instructors whining about eliminating the 25 yard line also, because "It's hard to get our less committed shooters to 'qualify' from that far away". The answer to that, of course, is to fire the "less committed" shooters, and hire some who are motivated to learn to shoot the issued weapon accurately out to 50 yards. But I supposed that'd be racist, or sexist, or some other form of "discrimination".

 

[MikeD]

Glocks may not be intended for use as 50 yard gund but the reality is that situations are not always textbook and people often have to improvise.

I once hit a steel plate repeatedly at 85 yards with an M&M 40c. It was fun and while I would not normally shoot that far (it did take a several rounds to zero in on it), I like to know that I can with relative accuracy. Most modern firearms are much more accurate then the people operating them.

I like hearing stories where a guy with a gun does good and doesn't end up in a media/police beat down as a result. People like this are an asset not a libility.

 

[DHonovich]

You certainly don't hear of stories like that in NY.

 

[carbinemike]

Thanks for posting. It didn't make the news in PA. That's great that a regular guy helped out. I've seen a few videos where a policeman in trouble gets some help.

That story reminded me of the Charles Whitman story. In the 60's he went beserk and was sniping from a tall building at the University of Texas, Austin. He killed and wounded a lot of people. Locals rushed to the scene and used hunting rifles to keep him pinned down and from killing even more. 2 policeman and an armed citizen made into and up to the tower top with a policeman killing him with 00 buck.

 

[Snowman366]

When I started out in the Academy in 1971, they had us fire about 4,000 rounds of .38 Special during "basic" firearm training. Over and over, straight through 'boring' right on into 'monotonous'. We fired out to the 50 yard line in every relay.

At another section of the firing range there was an ancient (and legendary) 12-inch steel gong at the 100 yard range. It was purportedly there for 12-gauge rifled slug practice, but the Academy staff ran all of us through it several different times, with our 4-inch service revolvers, to be sure we knew we could hit...or make life very unhappy...for violent felons at longer distances.

It wasn't shot for formal qualification, but rather for "familiarization" purposes. Damn near everyone was able to clang the old gong with a service revolver. The instructors even encouraged us to try it with our 2-inch snubbies, if we had one, and they worked with us to help us hit it more-often-than-not with those little guns. Not that a snubbie is an optimum tool for that sort of thing, but it proved you understood grip control and marksmanship.

In fact, I have a friend (who is a retired police detective) who now operates a gunshop and firearm training center in the northern part of the state. He routinely shoots magnum revolvers and other handguns on one of his 150 yard rifle ranges and handily hits full-size silhouette targets. I've managed to do it with a slug shotgun and several handguns and I'm not a high-end shooter.

It can be done with the right commitment and a modicum of practice, even with most autoloaders.

 

[megawatt]

Two months ago in a Suarez Intl gun class we had a evolution where we were shooting at a 3' steel plate that was 100 yards away. Before that day I would of thought 115grain 9mm from a P226 and G19 was not really possible. It was an eye opener to do it repeatedly.

 

[carbinemike]

The hero speaks. I finally noticed and watched the video of the helpful citizen. He has a white cowboy hat and is very modest. God bless Texas. He did hit the subject in the thigh with his .357, the guy did send a round his way after that and then the policeman ended it with two shots from his AR.


The best line was when he describes watching it unfold and was realizing he needed to help..."I'm fixin' to put one in 'im."

 

[ripjack13]

I find it odd that good ol pops can hit the guy 3 times with a revolver over a 100 yards away, yet the cop at half the distance only got 2...with a rifle. Someone need to be stepping up their training courses. Granted the guy was under serious stress once he got outa the car, but...man...only 2 hits..with an AR.
I'm not knocking the cop, nor any cop, however I blame the guy who said..aww we don't need them to go to more training, that way we can save money...

 

[MikeD]

I find it odd that good ol pops can hit the guy 3 times with a revolver over a 100 yards away, yet the cop at half the distance only got 2...with a rifle. Someone need to be stepping up their training courses. Granted the guy was under serious stress once he got outa the car, but...man...only 2 hits..with an AR.
I'm not knocking the cop, nor any cop, however I blame the guy who said..aww we don't need them to go to more training, that way we can save money...

Sadly, much of the law enforcement community never fire their gun except for when they need to for training/certification. I had heard this a lot but it was confirmed by a LEO I know who is also a firearms instructor.

The guy also could have been trained and trained well, but as we all know, if you don't keep practiving what you know you will lose it. All of these skills are perishable and we will forget or become less efficient if we do not keep on top of it.

Knowing that keeps me motivgated to keep my own skills up.

 

[CraigS]

My son in law is an officer and he had just returned from a 4 day AR training class a month or so ago when we visited. He mentioned that they used a 25 yd zero and i said I was quite surprised at that as I liked the 50 yd zero as it is within 2 inches all the way to 225 yds.The 25 yd zero is maybe 6-8 inches high somewhere between 25 and 300 yds. My thought was that it would be much harder to remember that graph than the 50 yd zero graph. Maybe the officer in Tex. was using a 25 yd zero.