I Had To Take the Shot

We had information on a fellow who came down from Alabama, an armed robber that didn’t let any witnesses live. He would go in rob a place, then kill everybody inside. I heard they were positive on six murders. There could have been more. This was a bad fellow.

He came down here to hide, recruited two additional people for robberies. Not knowing about these robberies, we served an arrest warrant for him on the murders on his girlfriend’s house. He wasn’t there. This was Wednesday. She told me, “officer, he’s not going to be taken alive. He’s a crazy man.”

On Friday we received information from an informant that three men were going to rob this warehouse because they knew there was cocaine and money. We didn’t piece together that this would be the same people. We surrounded the building, waiting most of the night.

They ended up showing up, broke into the warehouse, all armed. We could see the weapons as they were going in. I was next to a van. Thje first fellow came out. I told him to get down, and he did. The second fellow came out. I told him to get down and he did. Then the one involved in the homicides came out. I told him to get down. He had a .45 in his hand, and just raised it up at me. And I had to take the shot. Hhhhh.

If you look at it as far as law enforcement, ti was good to get somebody like this off the street. But then, to have to deal with the shooting and to kill somebody, it’s rewarding only for a short time. For about five minutes, when you find out that this is the person who’s murdered these people and pulling all these robberies, that’s good. But that’s about as rewarding as it gets. You want to have them surrender.