Saturday, August 24, 2013

Real Courage

That incident earlier this week where a mentally ill man went into an elementary school with an AK-47, almost 500 rounds of ammunition?  No one died.  Not because anyone returned fire (although the police did fire at one point).  From August 21, 2013 USA Today:
Antoinette Tuff spoke to Hill while on the phone with the 911 operator. She said Hill said he was off his medication and that "he don't care if he dies, he don't have nothing to live for," Tuff told the operator. "He said he's not mentally stable."

Later, she talked him into surrendering.

"He's laying on the floor. He's got everything out of his pockets. There isn't anything. The only thing he has is his belt. Everything is out of his pockets. Everything is sitting here on the counter, so all we need to do is they can just come in, and I'll buzz them in."

When the situation had ended, Tuff finally broke down.

"I'm going to tell you something baby — I've never been so scared in all the days in my life," she told the dispatcher.
That's guts -- way more than shooting Hill would have required.

2 comments:

  1. "That's guts -- way more than shooting Hill would have required."

    Major Kudos to Tuff!

    And what are the odds that he was a person who could have been talked down? I don't know, but if I was there with a gun I sure as hell wouldn't wait to find out if he was going to send a couple 7.62's through my heart, lungs or intestines. Does that mean I lack courage?

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  2. You clearly have good sense; the best assumption is that someone blazing away with a rifle in a school is unlikely to be reasonable.

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