AL: Customer Defends Self and Others from Threatened Mass Murder

An armed aggressor herding people into a back room is always a bad sign.  It often precedes a mass murder.  From the selmatimesjournal.com:

Dallas County Sheriff Harris Huffman said the incident appeared to be a case of self-defense and no one has been arrested in connection with the shooting Thursday afternoon.

The incident occurred when Dallas County resident Kevin Mclaughlin entered Dollar General reportedly waving a pistol in the air, Huffman said. Mclaughlin then ushered a group of people inside the store into a break room.

One customer showed good situational awareness, and was able to escape out the back door:

Orrville resident Deforest James said he was in the Dollar General moments before the shooting occurred. James exited the building shortly after Mclaughlin waved the pistol and told customers not to move.

“He said he was looking for three bad mother—-ers and then I ran out and I busted out through the back door,” James said.

No one can be certain how the incident would have turned out if customer Marlo Ellis had not been there and been armed, but the indications are that he prevented some very bad things from happening.

“It appears that once the cashier got inside the break room, a customer that was walking into the break room shot the individual, the white male, with the pistol,” Huffman said. “There was only one shot fired and that shot struck the individual with the pistol causing the disturbance.”

Houses act as giant sound suppressors. People outside seldom hear gun shots fired inside, or interpret what they hear correctly.  The sound is almost completely muted from an inside room.

©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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