Armed Citizen Stops Rampage

While traveling last week, I managed to catch a television report on a knife-wielding man's ramage at a Memphis grocery store. But, as a friend pointed out today, the news failed to mention exactly how the crazed attacker was "subdued." He sent me a link to this AP article, which gives the details.

A knife-wielding grocery store employee attacked eight co-workers Friday, seriously injuring five before a witness pulled a gun and stopped him, police said. ...

The attacker, chasing one victim into the store's parking lot, was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, Higgins said.

Cope said he grabbed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his pickup truck when he saw the attacker chasing the victim "like something in a serial killer movie."

"When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground," Cope told The Associated Press. "He saw my gun and that was pretty much it." ...

Higgins said police were pulling into the parking lot as Cope was confronting the attacker.

"We commend him," Higgins said. "But we don't encourage people to take that kind of risk. He could have been hurt."

Well, unless that knife can outrun a bullet, it wouldn't have been the maniac that would have hurt this citizen hero, who may very well have saved at least one life. More than likely, it would have been a cop with an itchy trigger finger who posed the most danger to Mr. Cope.

But back to the news coverage. Maybe it wasn't an accident that some media outlets failed to mention how the attack was stopped. Clayton Cramer reports that an agenda seems to be at work here, with USA Today getting its hand caught in the cookie jar of not only telling half the story -- but inventing some details.

Tsk, tsk.