Off-duty deputy praised for taking down gunman at Mayan 14 theater

[shadowrider]

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is calling one of their own a hero after deputies say she stopped what could have been a disastrous shooting inside a south-side movie theater lobby.

-- snip--

At 9:30 p.m., Garcia walked in and chased all employees and patrons out of the restaurant before firing at an employee as he or she tried to flee, police said. It was not immediately known if the targeted employee was his girlfriend.

Garcia continued to chase the employee from the restaurant to the parking lot outside the theater, firing his weapon along the way.

San Antonio police said Garcia also took aim at an officer who pulled up in a marked cruiser. He missed the officer but shattered the officer's windshield.

The chase went into the lobby of the Mayan 14 Theater, where off-duty Sheriff's Sgt. Lisa Castellano immediately sprang into action.

The 13-year veteran quickly moved all patrons out of the lobby and into a secure location, deputies said. She then chased Garcia into the men's restroom, where she and another off-duty police officer cornered the suspect. Castellano then shot the suspect.

http://www.kens5.com/news/Off-duty-deputy-takes-down-gunman-at-Mayan-14-movie-theater-183878851.html

Castellano was off duty in a theater with a gun (in a gun free zone). A gun stopped what could have been several dead.

[Kelvin Mace]

1. Correction...

Castellano was off duty in a theater with a gun (in a gun free zone). A gun stopped what could have been several dead.

A gun in the hands of a trained professional, a person who deals with dangerous situations every day stopped this cold.

Had the gun been wielded by just some average Joe with no real experience handling a firearm could have made the situation far, far worse.

[shadowrider]

2. She had a gun in a gun free zone. The gun stopped the perp. He got shot, he wasn't talked

out of his behaviour.

[Kelvin Mace]

5. A trained police officer

who is allowed to carry a gun in "gun free zones" took down shooter.

In the hands of an untrained person, the outcome could have been more tragedy.

[gejohnston]

7. or NYPD

who has a worse record than "untrained average joes"

[GreenStormCloud]

10. The real world says different.

There has not been a case in which a CCWer has made a rampage shooting worse. Thre have been several cases of such shootings being stopped by a CCWer. Knowing who to shoot in a rampage shooting is fairly obvious.

Pearl MS school shooting stopped by armed citizen 1997:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting

Appalachian School of Law shooting, 2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting

Golden Food Market Shooting 2009
http://blasphemes.blogspot.com/2009/07/golden-food-market-shootout-update.html

New Life Church Shooting 2007
http://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/articles/1638879

Winnemuccca, NV bar shooting, 2008
http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/19251374.html
Trolley Square Mall
4/24/1998 - Andrew Wurst attended a middle school dance in Edinboro, Pennsylvania intent on killing a bully but shot wildly into the crowd. He killed 1 student. James Strand lived next door. When he heard the shots he ran over with his 12 gauge shotgun and apprehended the gunman without firing.

LAC stops bar shooting in Plymouth, PA
http://citizensvoice.com/news/police-plymouth-shooter-wasn-t-provoked-1.1371854

[Lizzie Poppet]

11. The training that made the difference probably wasn't shooting training.

Cops don't get as much as you might think, and they don't really have to practice that much (although Sgt. Castellano might choose to do so...lots of officers do). I think the training that really stood her in good stead was in crisis management. That and her 13 years of experience helped her stay calm under the pressure of such a situation and make the right decisions. This is the area in which I think a lot of gun owners (whose shooting training and especially practice may well exceed those of the police) would be inferior to a police officer in such a situation.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. Agreed!

13 years as a police officer is on the job training. I am quite sure that wasn't her first rodeo.

Most people have a very poor understanding of how they would operate under fire.

[PavePusher]

28. And yet, we do not reserve armed self-defense to the sole provence of the police.

Nor should we.

[Kelvin Mace]

32. Who are you defending yourself against?

Criminals?

The country is awash in guns and background checks are a joke since they are easily evaded. Close the loopholes and apply require registration of ALL guns.

Psychos?

Background checks should include psych checks for the purchaser and their immediate family. Sorry, but if you have a mentally unstable person in your home, guns should not be around.

Also, I can understand having a few gun around for self-protection, but there are people out there with bloody arsenals. Why do people need dozens of firearms, including military-grade assault rifles with high capacity clips?

I am not for banning guns, but limiting the number and type, and requiring registration and EFFECTIVE background checks that are hard to evade, is just logical and prudent.

[PavePusher]

45. Only a very few (and generally very well-to-do) people own "military-grade assault rifles".

You seem to be unfamiliar with the laws and the technology. Those are not the firearms under debate.

Registration will not stop theft and unauthorized access. Registration is also illegal at the Federal level, not a loophole at all.

How do you define "arsenal"? If you want it to have a specific legal meaning, you'll have to quantify it and explain how having X guns is fine, but X+1 is not.

[Kelvin Mace]

46. I am not making technological

or legal arguments, but common sense and moral ones. Sadly, these arguments are mutually exclusive, especially given the massive profit for the gun industry (whose business plan is "fear and more fear&quot .

There is no rational reason for a person a person to have more than a 5 or 6 firearms.

I know I will not convince you of this. But, such is life, and death.

[PavePusher]

47. There are plenty of rational reasons for it, you just don't like them.

Such is life, indeed.

[Kelvin Mace]

48. No, we differ in opinion on what is rational

subtle but important difference.

[PavePusher]

18. Please cite to evidence that supports your assertion. n/t

[Atypical Liberal]

20. How much training does it take to recognize a bad person and shoot them?

Really. How difficult is this?

When you see the lunatic with a gun, it's usually pretty obvious.

[Kelvin Mace]

33. In close quarters

with panicked people running all over the place, it is damned easy to miss and hit someone else. As someone mentioned elsewhere in this thread, even "trained" police officers are not immune to "panic fire".

Also, when the police show up, who do they shoot? Anyone waving a gun?

These are decisions that have to be made in a fraction of a second.

[Atypical Liberal]

34. And so far, this has not been a problem.

Even this guy figured it out:

http://www.kgw.com/news/Clackamas-man-armed-confronts-mall-shooter-183593571.html

"The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.

"As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said."

He assessed the situation, and didn't feel it was safe to take the shot, so he didn't.

I think people read more into these situations than they warrant. I don't think it's hard to figure out who the bad guy is in these situations. They are the ones standing over the bodies and who everyone is running away from.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure them out. You just have to know how to shoot a gun.

[gejohnston]

3. if it were New York

where no training is required for CCW and police training seems to be marginal, you would have a point. From what I understand, Texas has a fairly stringent training requirement for their CCWs. The gap may not have been as great.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Does the training involve

Shoot/Don't Shoot training?

Also, no classroom course can prepare you for a combat situation.

[gejohnston]

6. have to ask a Texan

They do have a range test. The requirements for cops, who have to look for bad guys, vs a CCW who is wrong place/wrong time already are two different things.
I only know how Florida does it, which I thought was a fucking joke and a waste of my time and $40 bucks.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. The closest thing I have seen

for police training (other than "in the field" experience) is the "Hogan's Alley" set up, where they walk a course with pop up targets which can be good or bad guys.

I am not aware of any required cert program that goes that far. Even then, pop up targets are not shooting at you.

I remember the story of the Arizona shooting where there was a fellow with a weapon. Not only did he not stop the shooter, he admitted he came damned close to shooting an innocent bystander.

[gejohnston]

17. if it is the case I'm thinking of

he came from across the street, JL was already down, and the bystander was holding the gun. Not the same thing. His gun was still holstered, so he had more time to process that information. A cop would already have his gun drawn and would have been more likely to shoot the guy holding the gun.

[PavePusher]

25. Joseph Zimudie was in a Walgreens across the parking lot.

I don't know how you expect anyone to stop somnething they are not actually on-scene for.

Otherwise, he did exactly as you want people to do.

He evaluated the situation, listened to people already on scene, and adjusted his actions to fit the facts. He never even drew his weapon.

[Kelvin Mace]

35. His own words...

"I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41018893/ns/slate_com/t/armed-giffords-hero-nearly-shot-wrong-man/

Luck, not skill, but luck was the saving grace.

[Clames]

8. Wrong.

Plenty of recent events have proven that assertion false. You can't come up with a single example where an armed average Joe made such a situation worse.

[shadowrider]

9. Well, there was that incident in NY not long ago

where a guy was shot on the street and 8 people were injured..wait, that was by "trained" NYPD officers. But I guess that's ok, they're "trained".

[Kelvin Mace]

15. Yes, police screw up all time

and they are trained.

What I want is 2 or 3 citizens with ZERO training panic firing in a crowd.

Also, when the police do respond, who do they shoot at? How do they know who the bad guy is?

[PavePusher]

23. If you can find an example of such a situation, please post it. n/t

[Kelvin Mace]

16. Average armed Joes make things worse all the time

They shoot themselves or others, accidentally or on purpose, and their weapons fall into the hands of children with predictable results.

We have had two instances in the last week of small children bringing guns to school, which either a parent GAVE them, or the parent failed to secure the weapon properly, so the child took it.

I have been robbed and looked down the barrel of a gun. At that moment, I didn't wish I had a gun, or that some other person had a gun to shoot him. I wished HE didn't have a gun.

Can we keep all guns out of the hands of criminals? No. But the currents system makes it child's play to obtain a firearm.

[PavePusher]

27. If you can find evidence of a Citizen in a lawful self-defense incident "making things worse".....

with their own firearm, please post it.

[jpak]

37. Ask Trayvon Martin's parents that question

yup

[Lizzie Poppet]

12. As I say below, her experience was probably the big factor.

13 years on the force means she's been in stress situations time and time again.

[Atypical Liberal]

19. I'm tired of this idea that police officers are magical unicorns.

A gun in the hands of a trained professional, a person who deals with dangerous situations every day stopped this cold.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see who the bad guy is, recognize an imminent threat, and deal with it with a gun.

It just takes someone who is good with a gun.

I'd put my gun skills up against anyone.

[armueller2001]

21. Agreed.

I'm sure people at the Colorado movie theater weren't thinking "Gee, I'm sure glad there isn't anyone pulling out their guns to stop this killer, they would make it SO much worse!"

[Atypical Liberal]

22. Exactly. There are no atheists in foxholes.

And no anti-gunners when someone shows up to rescue them with a gun.

[jpak]

26. I'm tired of "more guns are the answer" magical bullshit

up

[Atypical Liberal]

31. Yet nearly every time one of these shootings happens, it stops because of someone with a gun.

yup.

[jpak]

36. Law enforcement - not some douchebag vigilante yahoo

yup

[Atypical Liberal]

38. I do not believe that law enforcemenet officers are some kind of magical unicorn.

In a mass shooting situation, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out who the bad guy is.

You just have to have a gun and know how to use it.

[jpak]

39. and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that douchebag vigilantes

will make things worse by shooting everyone that they *think* is the bad guy.

yup

[Atypical Liberal]

40. Like this douchebag vigilante?

http://www.kgw.com/news/Clackamas-man-armed-confronts-mall-shooter-183593571.html

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who the bad guy is. He's the one standing over the bodies shooting running, screaming people.

[jpak]

41. Your gun hero hid behind a post - and did not "confront" the shooter

If he had pulled his penis extender (gun) - some other gun nut hero may have shot him.

yup

[PavePusher]

42. "hid behind a post"....

Yes, that's how you do it. You don't step out into the middle of the hallway like it's a bad western movie.

[Atypical Liberal]

44. And did exactly what you just claimed they would not do.

Namely, he did not take the shot because it was not safe to do so.

Which directly refutes your claim.

[jpak]

24. Stop with the reality stuff already.

yup

[jehop61]

29. Just stop

Your touting gun possession at this time is not welcome

[PavePusher]

43. (Checks around...) Yep, still the RKBA forum.

Care for a reasonable discussion?

[bigbrother05]

30. She was off-duty working as security at the theater

that detail was not in your link, but is part of the initial reports

http://www.kens5.com/home/Theater-shooting-One-hit-after-shots-fired-SAPD-says-183737641.html
--------
A suspect who fired on a police car and then fled was shot by an off-duty officer working as a security guard inside a southwest-side movie theater Sunday night, authorities said.
--------

Certainly deserving of the praise for her actions, but not just someone that happened to be on the scene and armed.

The folks that hired her got their money's worth and then some.