From - Fri Aug 14 19:32:27 1998 Received: from broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca [198.169.128.1]) by skatter.USask.Ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA18562 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:51:34 -0600 (CST) Received: from riverview.net (dns1.riverview.net [206.250.30.2]) by broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id LAA11002 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:45:31 -0600 Message-Id: <199804281745.LAA11002@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca> Received: from my-computer by riverview.net with SMTP (IPAD 1.14) id 1488000 ; Tue, 28 Apr 98 13:50:18 UTC From: "R.J.K." To: "Skeeter Abell-Smith" Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 13:53:55 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Because I Was Armed May 1998 Priority: normal Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-printable to 8bit by skatter.USask.Ca id LAA18562 X-Lines: 84 Status: RO Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Length: 5019 X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 Because I Was Armed A TOUGH CASE May 1998 Gene Case had just completed a tour of a residential apartment complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the woman who managed the apartment complex. It was early January, 1998, and his company intended to bid on some tree pruning work at the complex. They completed the tour and drove back to the manager's office. Once there, they were surprised to see a very tall, large man who was verbally attacking members of her management staff. The manager recognized the man as a resident of the complex. Spying the manager, the man ran up to Case's truck, yanked open the passenger door, pulled the manager from the truck and began to verbally assault her as well. His ceaseless ranting included several racial epithets. Case reached toward the console of his truck. Licensed to carry a concealed firearm, he kept his Colt M1911 .45 ACP pistol in the truck. Case placed his Colt beneath his sweater and got out of the vehicle. The man had let go of the manager's arm, but continued to rave on, yelling, screaming, and cursing. Case, the manager, and her staff tried to calm him down, with no success. Suddenly, the enraged man-who stood some 6'7" tall-saw an 80-year old woman walking through the parking lot. She used a walker and was connected to a heart monitor. In an inexplicable fit of anger, the man rushed over to the woman and grabbed her heart monitor. She tried to fend him off, but he tore her heart monitor from her, leads and all, and viciously slammed the life-sustaining device to the ground. "I yelled to him to leave her alone, said Case. "I still hadn't drawn my gun. I was going to physically intervenefight him if I could-at that point." The man turned toward Case when Case yelled. Ranting and hurling threats, he ran at Case. As this was going on, a young woman who also lived in the complex pulled into a parking space. She took her two-year-old daughter out of her car and began to take out her grocery bags. The enraged man turned away from Case and ran at this woman. He snatched the baby from her arms Watching in disbelief, Case quickly asked the manager, "is that his child?" "No!" she said. "He's stealing that woman's baby!" The man began running away, across the parking lot. Case had seen enough. As the mother's frantic cries filled his ears, Case sprinted across the parking lot in pursuit. He intercepted the crazed man. Blocking his escape, Case drew his .45, leveled it between the eyes of the would-be kidnapper, and said, "Freeze!" The .45 won quick compliance. Instantly, the once-seething man's demeanor changed. "Don't shoot me!" he begged. Case said, "That's exactly what I will do if you don't put that baby down-NOW1" The man slowly set the baby down. The baby's mother, who had rushed over, took her baby and retreated to safety. Incredibly, as Case reflected later, the man then said, "Don't shoot me, man; I've got heart problems. Case ordered the man to lie down on the ground. He did, but first, for reasons known only to himself, he pulled his pants and underwear down to his ankles. Case was surprised, though he really wasn't expecting rational behavior from the man at that point. Keeping his .45 aimed at the man, Case opened his cell phone and called 9-1-1.Case later said, "if he had run at that point, I would have just let hin go. What I had wanted was for him to let go of that baby. Police arrived within a few min utes. An officer assessed the situa tion and then, before asking Case te stand down, handcuffed the man or the ground. After the threat was con tained, Case asked the officer, "Car I put up my gun?"The officer said that yes, he could cease covering the sus pect. Two more police officers arrivec and took the handcuffed man inte custody. Then the officers took a ful report. They praised Case for hi~ actions, and for the fact that he possessed both the fortitude and the hardware to resolve the situation. A judge issued an order sending the man who had been arrested to E detention facility for psychiatric evalu ation. At the time of this writing, he is free, with a court date pending. It may be observed that his allegec actions amount to committing a life threatening assault and battery on the elderly woman when he attacked her and ripped off her heart monitor, ane a kidnapping of the baby when he tooC and moved the child, without authori· ty, a distance away from her mother The culprit's aggressive conduci demonstrated to any reasonable per son that he posed a danger of inflict ing serious bodily harm or death. No charges were filed against Case He may be suffering a somewhat sore hand, though-the result of quite a few fellow citizens shaking it in gratitude.a - "Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others." ____________________________________________ MEMBER ... NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION The oldest civil rights organization in America.