Posted on 08/02/2012 5:15:50 AM PDT by marktwain
Edited on 08/02/2012 5:19:07 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
It’s not every day that you hear the police give a civilian a warm “thank you” for entering a lethal shootout, but that’s exactly what happened in Early, Texas on Sunday. But before we get into the heroic civilian shooter, let’s back up a bit.
See a Man About a Dog
It all began, innocently enough, “as a squabble over dogs.” David Michael House, 58, and Iris Valentina Calaci, 53, were both residents at the Peach House RV Park in central Texas. They were also dog owners, and their pooches allegedly had a nasty habit of relieving themselves on the lawn of neighbor Charles Ronald Conner, 58.
According to eyewitnesses, Conner approached House about his dog, and an argument broke out. Rather than dealing with the confrontation like a normal human being, Conner allegedly went back to his RV, got his gun, returned to House, and lethally shot him.
The gun shots prompted Calaci to run screaming from her trailer home, but she didn’t get far. Conner chased her down, shot her once and then fired another shot into her, execution style.
Amazingly, Conner’s shooting spree didn’t end there. He also shot and killed the two dogs that, in his confused mind, started the mess.
Fatally shooting your neighbors over an issue of dog doo might seem absurdly over-the-top to normal people like you and us, but it might have appeared perfectly sensible to Conner. Conner’s family explained that he had “mental problems.” Police later found a notebook in Conner’s trailer with nearly incomprehensible “ramblings.”
Conner might’ve been able to get a lenient sentence in court due to his troubled mental state, but that day will never come – there was to be one more shooting on that tragic day, this time in the name of defense.
Shots Fired
Sgt. Steven Means of the Early Police Department came rolling onto the scene, but he had barely gotten out of his car before Conner began opening fire on the officer. Means took cover behind his police car and returned fire with an AR-15, but Conner maintained cover behind a tree. Eyewitnesses report that this positioning gave Conner the upper hand over the out-gunned police officer.
A Helping Hand
Means and Conner weren’t the only two people with their attention riveted on the gun fight. Vic Stacy, another resident of the RV park, saw the gun fight break out as he was watching TV in his mobile home and thought to himself, “I’m going to see what’s going to happen here and if I need to I’ll, you know, get in on it.”
Stacy, who had a seen Conner around his trailer park and described him as "off the wall", watched the gun fight for a few moments and concluded, “I think (Conner) is gonna take (the officer) out if I don’t help him out.”
So, that’s when Stacy decided to act. Conner may have had excellent cover against the Officer Means, but Stacy was in a flanking position that gave him the perfect vantage point. Stacy recalled, “I had a side view of that man the whole time standing there, and I thought, I’m fixin’ to put one in him, if I can.”
Stacy raised his gun, fired, and landed one hell of a shot – by his estimate “a good 165 yards” – with a pistol (we do not know the make or caliber at this time). Stacy wasn’t even sure if he could make the shot at that distance: “I hope this magnum bullet’ll hold up, you know, this distance. And sure enough it did and I hit him in the thigh.”
At that point, Conner returned fire against Stacy with his AR-15. He missed his shot, luckily, but that gave dead-eye Stacy another opportunity to pull the trigger. Stacy “hit him again and put three more in him … The patrolman got two shots in him with that AR-15. And it seems like he’s all over with, then.”
Conner died on the scene, but if it wasn’t for the aid of Vic Stacy, the body count might have been a lot higher.
Thanks for the Help!
More police arrived on scene an promptly threw Stacy in cuffs, but after Officer Means cleared up what had happened they released Stacy. Brown County Sheriff Bobby Grubbs later said, "The citizen that fired these shots did a tremendous job out there. Had he not had a gun and the presence of mind to do this, we don't know what the outcome would've been.”
It is currently unclear as to whether it was Stacy's shots or Officer Mean's shots that delivered the killing blow. Either way, the police are not planning to press charges against Stacy. If anything, they should give him a medal.
Police and RV park residents alike have been calling Stacy a hero, but he’s rejected the label. He said that he’s just an “average workin’ person” who was just “trying to help an officer out.”
Stacy told Brownwood Bulletin that he wasn’t able to sleep at all the night following the shooting, but the following day was a different story. Stacy was able to get a good night's sleep after police convinced him that he had acted appropriately and saved lives.
Stacy added, “I hate that it happened. But I’m glad that we got him down. I felt sorry for those people.”
We might have a new role model. Vic Stacy was not overeager to pull the trigger, he felt the appropriate weight on his conscience after taking the life of another person, and he hasn’t let the media attention get to his head. If you ask us, the world could use a few more Vic Stacys.
on a side note..... A dog shooting and the cop didn’t do it!
I can understand him scoring with a .357 magnum revolver. I have a S&W Model 19 with a 6” barrel that could be used to make such a shot, especially if fired SA. Nevertheless, even at 65 yards, DAMN GOOD SHOOTING.
“No gun ranges around where I live that’ll give you more than 25 yards...”
I have my own ‘range’... :)
I shoot at a range that has 50, 100, and 150 meter ranges for hunting pistol. Those who use those distances tend to hit targets smaller than a man almost all of the time, although obviously not with a snub nose pistol.
I have access to my BIL’s farm which is plenty big. But ain’t as nice as hitting an indoor range. Chiggers, ticks and skeeters can get mean out there in these dog days.
I was witness to an unarmed man rescuing a San Francisco cop, who would certainly have been killed without his help.
When more cops arrived, they severely beat the good guy despite the protests of another witness, and manhandled that witness.
I honestly might have let the cop deal with it himself,...
Fortunately, I was old enough, experienced enough, and wise enough to know what happens to citizens near injured cops and citizens that try to tell cops they are screwing up.
“Chiggers, ticks and skeeters can get mean...”
Yup, that is true. But here an occasional moving target (’coon, g’hog, ‘possum) shows itself :)
That's some damned fine shooting there.
That took a lot of courage for Mr. Stacy to enter that gun fight and rescue the officer.
Coner need to be put down, but it is not fun being the one he forced into doing it.
Good shooting.
I met a guy who once popped balloons with with a snubbie. At 300 yards.
Of course, this guy burns hundreds, if not thousands of rounds of ammo a day practicing - that's what he does. He can also fire a revolver faster than it is physically possible to fire a semi-auto pistol.
In any case, most guns are far more accurate than the people shooting them. If I understand correctly, the length of the gun is about the site radius (and, of course, muzzle velocity). I bet that guy put in a lot of practice with that pistol.
A Jennings .22 with a loose slide is more accurate than I am, as far as pistols go. Different story with rifles or shotguns.
/johnny
25 yards—you must live in town—just kidding.
Last time we went it was out a ways in the country several years ago on private land.
As far as one closer in, I don’t know what the yards are now
but it seems they were more then 25 yards.
Don;t remember much about the setup.
Sure enough put some fear in someone....
A Jennings .22 is only good for gouging the web between your thumb and forefinger.
I suspected it would not take long for somebody to come here and start complaining about police. Almost as bad as the DUmp around here anymore.
I suspected it would not take long for somebody to come here and start complaining about police. Almost as bad as the DUmp around here anymore.
Maybe if we didn’t have two incidents if florida in the last month where two men were killed for the simple ‘crime’ of having a gun in their hands during dangerous situations, I wouldn’t make that comment.
But it did happen. Why? Because cops who can’t control their fear and verify the threat. Or recognize that we want to live through dangerous situations too and that a cop’s life isn’t the first priority of all living things.
Some people are loosing their live and don’t even have a gun, just the cop THOUGHT they MIGHT have one.
You don’t like my opinion? Tough. Cops have earned the distrust and hatred they’re getting. Maybe they need to act less like Sheriff Bufford T Justice, and more like Andy Taylor. You’ll get more respect that way.
Have a nice day licking pigs’ boots.
good shooting!
the article did not read that the citizen also took some fire after putting the first round in the other guy. Put another three in him?
Police officer since the summer of 1999 and conservative since birth.
What a shame; it's hard to feel sorry for ANY minority group when they're victimizing you....
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