The year prior to my entry into LE (71), a shooting had taken place in Columbus involving one of our officers. After I started, the shooting story was still being widely discussed by senior officers, one of several who were mentors to me then. The details of it are still fresh with me as it seems nowadays, I remember things of the past better than "what happened yesterday". As in all small cities in the US, with a population of 250,000+, there are bound to be officer-involved shootings. Some cities more, some less (read between the lines), and I wish that it wasn't so, but it is. This particular shooting was unique to the original post here as it involved the use of the Model 10-5 by the officer. It goes like this;
One afternoon one of our officers on patrol received a routine "see the party" call, or 10-48 using then police radio terminology. This was a very routine call that officers got (still do) about seeing the citizen about some subject matter, non-violent in nature. After receiving the call from the Radio Room, the officer responded and went 10-97 several minutes later. This was in 1970 and under those rules of the game, I hasten to remind the reader. The officer walked up to the front door of the residence and knocked. The door opened and he was met by a middle-age female that had the "look" of very hard living about her. She asked the officer to step inside. I also need to mention that the officer was without a walkie-talkie. We didn't have those until years later. After getting inside the female starts crying and telling the officer about her "abusive" and "violent" husband. The officer would later state that at that moment he started getting some dreadful premonition that something awful was about to happen and it did! During the woman's rant an "explosion" occurred in the back-part area of the house. That would later turn out to be the husband shooting out the bedroom window from inside the house with a pump 12-gauge shotgun. The female screamed and jumped behind the officer, who was still standing inside the front door (door closed). The officers ears were ringing from the shotgun blast inside a confined area, greatly magnified. The officer drew his service revolver, a PD-issued Smith & Wesson Model 10-5, stoked with six-rounds of the old .38 Police Load (158-gr. LRN standard factory loading specs). The officer later told investigators he could hear an evil laugh coming from the man as he racked the slide back and ejected the spent for a fresh round. The officer stated that he could hear the male walking down the hall, in his direction! No cover anywhere in sight, the officer assumed his best shooting stance, Model 10 up and ready. The female, meanwhile, was going mentally ballistic, further distracting the officer from his would-be killer. He forced himself to concentrate on the situation at hand as the male rounded the corner into the living room where both officer and female were and started bringing that shotgun up to bear. The officer, now in a two-handed weaver combat stance, quickly fired two .38 rounds straight into the males cranium, forehead area. He dropped instant from instant brain-scramble from those .38 rounds. All of this, from the time the officer was ask to come inside, to the actual shooting itself was inside 30-seconds. The officer would finish out his career without anymore shootings to deal with. A deeply religious man, considered top drawer material by all who knew him. But that one call, on that particular day, that started out routine but turned deadly. Just a reminder, for all who serve, to always be vigilant no matter what! Since this particular officer involved shooting involved the Model 10-5, I thought the subject matter might be interesting to who who have served and those still on the job. Whether it was 1970 or 2016 the principal of "always" having your guard up is imperative to our boys and girls in uniform. I love them all, GOD help me, I do!
David
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