We’ve talked a lot on this site about the importance of responding appropriately when there’s an altercation and police are involved. Police can’t tell one bad guy with a gun from the good guy with the gun. So you have to make it easy for them by putting your gun away, keeping your arms up, following their orders etc.
In Amarillo, Texas, a man disarmed a would-be shooter at a church, but when police arrived they shot him twice.
Tony Garces, a student at the city mission, saw the gun. He wrestled the armed man, who had fired one shot already, to the ground n and managed to grab the gun away from the shooter.
The article says that when officers told Garces to throw the gun down, he hesitated for fear that the gun would discharge and harm someone. Instead, he tried to put the gun on the floor – that’s when he said he was shot twice.
It underscores the importance of following police orders. Ideally, he would have tossed the gun aside before the police got there. Perhaps he could have gently put it down next to him rather than tossing it with enough force that it would have gone off? Perhaps he could have called out to police that he will put it down slowly? I’m not sure what the answer is but I’d say Garces is lucky to be alive.
