A woman answered the door. “Oh hi. You came.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s my husband. He’s been drinking. He didn’t go to work this morning.”

I get her name, her age, the name of her husband. “Has he got any guns in the house?”

“No.”

“Knives of any sort? Swords?”

“No.”

“Where’s he at?”

She says, “Oh, take it easy on him. He obeys the law. It’s just when he’s drinking.”

“OK. Sounds good. You wait here.” Now I start walking down this long hallway. And as I’m walking down the hallway, my gun’s unsnapped, still in the holster. I see an alcove built into the wall. I remember looking into this room, then to the alcove. He’s standing there with a gun.

Mid-step it was, bonk! I said, “Oh, how you doing, man?” We are within a foot or two of each other. I remember looking at him and thinking, “Oh fuck!” Everything is slowed down. I remember looking at the gun barrel, thinking, I don’t know how he’s able to hold that with one hand. That’s a huge gun. The bullet is going to smash me. I felt every breath I took I could feel every molecule of air. I started to perspire. It felt like every drop was an ice cube.

I said, “Man, why don’t you put the gun down. You haven’t got problems now. Why don’t you just put the gun down?”

He said, “Fuck you! I’ll kill you and her.”

“Oh boy,” I says. “Buddy, you don’t want to do that. Put the gun down, and let’s end it right here. Because if you don’t, you’re going to die.”

He says, “I’ll kill you!”

Suddenly the gun went down in size and I remember calculating, “That’s a .22 or a .25. If he doesn’t get me in the head, it’s going to take some time for me to die. Well, I’ll be able to kill him because I carry a .38 special.” My gun was half way up, still in the holster.

I says, “I’ll tell you what buddy. You’ve got your chance. Put it down, because I’m going to count to four. When I reach four, you may as well goddam shoot, because I drawing and I’m killing you. I’m not going to die right way. OK? One… .”

And he put the gun down. I was going to draw on two.

He goes, “Aw fuck!” All I remember is his arm reaching all the way to the floor. He must have bent over, but I didn’t notice.

“OK,” I says, “let’s grab the wall.” I put the gun in the waste can, handcuffed him.

We had lights from patrol vehicles and it was almost a full moon. Eventually our eyes adjusted to a mowed pasture of eight-inch high stubble by a farm house. Then came a five-hour emotional roller-coaster confrontation in that field leading to a face to face negotiation involving me and ranger Johnny A. We’re about ten feet apart, with Robert P pointing the gun toward me and Johnny alternately. Johnny and I are 90 degrees from each other to him. He’s got to turn his head from one to another. So if he tries to engage either of us he’s got to do it one at a time. Hopefully one of us can get a shot off.

He’s talking about his gal and “what a no-good bitch she is”

I interrupt him and say, “is this the woman you plan on spending the rest of your life with?”

He says, “hell, no!”

“Then, why are you letting her win?”

He’d said he wanted to see his brother, to make his peace. This was a very suicidal sounding prelude to a suicide by cop. At one point Robert P said he was going to make it to that farmhouse. Johnny who was standing between Robert P and farmhouse said, “Partner, that ain’t going to happen.” Whereupon the guy sat down.

He stops and thinks about what I said.

He turns to Johnny and says, “do you have a gun?” Johnny, who is six or eight feet from him at this point on other side of a fence, looks at him and says, “no.”

Robert P turns to me and asks, “Do you have a gun?”

I said, “Yes, I do.”

And he starts to get real pissed off

I say, “Wait a minute. I’ve not lied to you yet. I’ve been standing out here with you for five hours. Yes I’ve got a gun. I may be stupid, but I ain’t no fool.”

He starts laughing. We all start laughing. With that he gets real quiet. I look at Johnny, Johnny looks at me. We both figure, Oh boy, here it comes. He’s probably going to level that weapon at me first which will give Johnny an opportunity to take him out.

All of a sudden at 12:47 am he raised the muzzle of the shotgun up, racked six live rounds out onto the ground, then put the gun down.