“Police sources tell 7 Action News that a women’s basketball coach from Martin Luther King, Jr. Senior High School shot two men who attacked him as he was walking two basketball players to their cars in the school parking lot.” Stop the digital presses! What we have here isn’t a failure to communicate, it’s a 70-year-old school employee — on school property — who was packing heat. And it’s good that he was, since the gold chain around his neck caught the covetous eyes of a couple of local yoots . . .
All the coach was doing was keeping a protective eye on two of his charges. Detroit’s wxyz.com has the scoop:
Police sources say the coach was walking the two girls to their cars when two men allegedly approached and one pulled out a gun and grabbed him by his chain necklace. The coach then pulled out his gun and shot both of them, according to sources.
The wannabe muggers had probably been casing the coach’s neck for a while. Both had attended the school and one had been recently thrown out.
But wait! A teacher with a gun? Quel horreur! Won’t the considerate coach, at minimum, lose his job over the MLK DGU? Au contraire, mon frere.
Police sources say the coach has a Concealed Pistol License and is reportedly a reserve police officer. They say he is fully cooperating with authorities.
Nice that he was there with a legally concealed weapon. Even at school. Too bad more people who work in and attend educational institutions don’t enjoy the same option. It’s probably because no one wants to see schools turned into armed camps.
This good man’s fine action and result is an example of I’ve said before:”Self-defense is the difference between getting to tell the cops what happened or them guessing as they draw a chalk line around your body.”.
While I’m really glad this worked out the way it did, I’m really sad that this guy is a “reserve police officer,” because that makes him a “more equal pig.” I wouldn’t want him to lose his job, but I’d much prefer he hadn’t been a reserve police officer, but simply a carry permit holder, that way we could use this situation to expose the lunacy of the existing system. As it is, it will be dismissed as “yeah, but he’s a cop.”
What exactly does a 70 year old “reserve police officer” do, anyway? I’d be a reserve police officer, too, if it let me carry when and where I felt appropriate, as opposed to having someone else dictate it to me. Matter of fact, I think I’m gonna inquire into what it takes here where I live.
Great, less thugs I gotta worry about when I move down next month, Good thing he was in law enforcment otherwise he would be going to jail for carry in a school zone. CCW in MI has a gun free zone exemption for law enforcment retirees, and current.
This could get interesting. Michigan’s concealed carry law criminalizes a person with a concealed carry license who carries concealed into a school. Note that it is okay to be concealed in a parking lot because you have to be able to store your handgun if you go into a building in a “gun free zone”. Oddly, Michigan does not criminalize a person with a concealed carry license from carrying openly into any “gun free zone”.
While it is true that Michigan does not criminalize active duty law enforcement officers who carry concealed into a school building, that exemption gets murky with respect to “reserve police”.
If I were that coach, I would follow the golden rule of “shut up” and let the prosecutor try to prove whether or not that coach retrieved his handgun from his car or whether the coach carried openly into and then out of the school building.
It’s too bad the mainstream media won’t put this on national news, as it doesn’t fit their agenda…
Are reserve police officers the ones who drive around in the ‘police volunteer’ marked cars with the orange lights on top who issue parking tickets but don’t do much else? Is this just a Southern California thing? Cuz I always thought those people were just a pain in the ass. In all seriousness, good on him for being prepared.
I only know about being a reserve LASD deputy but after the extensive back ground check, attending the academy you then work with Full time deputies until you achieve I think over 300 hours at which time when you are on duty you are the same as any other deputy and patrol alone. All for one dollar a year.
Sweet…can only hope these scumbags are now pushing up daisy’s.
Once again Wayne was right armed school staff can stop violent crimes in schools.
this is a prime example of an armed staff preventing crime.
The media report is slanting towards it being a tragedy and “unexplainable” that the two teens were shot in this altercation. Yes, it’s a tragedy that the conditions of their lives from birth until that moment led to them being hoodlums instead of upstanding young citizens. The myriad number of factors that shape someone into a criminal like that being impossible to detail at this point so it’s speculation. Lousy parents? No parents? Gangs? Who knows.
Also, referring to the coach who defended himself, and two other students, from these two hoodlums as “the shooter” in this “tragedy” makes it sound like he did something wrong. I would agree it would be a tragedy…if he had been shot dead in that parking lot by the two hoodlums. Not the other way around. Retributive justice comes closer to defining the current outcome.
But in the end they were hoodlums, one had a pistol, and was ready to shoot the coach over…what, his pocket money? And what of the two girls? The pessimist in me would fear what would come next for those two had the coach not acted as he did. Those girls went to the same school those hoodlums went to (well, until the one was ejected from the school) so they would likely have been able to ID them. Thugs don’t like to leave witnesses… So no, it’s not a “tragedy”. Maybe “triumph” is the better word, actually. There are currently two female basketball players at that high school that are alive, and quite possibly unmolested, because of this coach’s actions.
I know, a lot of “what ifs” and speculation about motives, causes, and unknowns, but it’s hard not to think the worst given the situation.
Oh yeah…how did that teen get a pistol? I thought the legal age to purchase was 21. Obviously he got it at a gun show where they do zero background checks and allow cash and carry to anyone who’s old enough to walk (toddlers are restricted to long arm purchases and black powder pistols only). …yeah, sorry, I’ll turn the sarcasm off now!
The reporter reported the story, but the anchor editorialized. “Two teens shot at a school, a tragic story all around”. Makes it sound like the teens were victims. And what part of this story was tragic? If you told me it was tragic that the two students escorted to their cars were traumatized, then I would agree that is sad and tragic. If you told me that the 70 year-old was traumatized and having heart palpitations/pain, then YES that is sad and tragic. But the only thing tragic over the two thugs trying to rob/rape/kill is the fact that the second armed robber survived his wounds.
tragic story all around in that these young teenagers were just that. so young. unfortunately one of them didn’t get to learn his lesson and move on in life. the other, if he survives i hope will learn from this experience and will do an about face in his life also. it’s also a shame that the young teenage basketball players had to see this go down also. so YES it is tragic all around, but I also believe the coach / retired officers had to do what he had to do so kudos to him.
this WHOLE scenario is unfortunate.
“Butbutbut… we can’t have armed teachers!!! What if they go crazy and shoot the students!!” How about you teach your kids to not be snot nosed little turds, and worry about there being crazy teachers teaching your kids and not whether or not they’re armed? Oh, but they’re just your public babysitters. You don’t care that your kids’ teachers could be demented lunatics or convicted felons, just so that you don’t have to put up with them during the day.
Sheepdogs!
Did you catch the final words of the report? “…a tragedy all the way around. Unexplainable.” No, the tragedy would have been 3 innocent people dead, while thugs make off with $50 in jewelry. I guess we need to call in NASA to explain this one.
When I was a kid & the cops said stop & you ran from them they would try to shoot you in the leg. If they couldn’t hit your leg you took one in the back or head. These were full power 357 magnums, not the sissified stuff. Now we have to hand the perp a free obama phone so they can call their mother. Like others said, too bad his aim wasn’t better, Randy
… that’s 3 more lives SAVED by a responsible citizen and gun-owner. I hope someone’s keeping track! Conversely, that also takes 2 more bad guys off the street. Well done, coach!
Most publishers have headlines like “Two teens shot outside of MLK high school in Detroit”.
This would be an excellent case study in media spin against guns!
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