In Rockledge, Florida, at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, the 25th of November, 2017, two armed citizens stopped a mass murder in progress. Police Chief Joseph P. LaSata of the Rockledge Police Department credited the intervention of the armed citizens for stopping the murderer.
The murder and gunfight started in Schlenker’s parking lot. The suspect opened fire on a 25 year old employee, paralyzing him. He shot and killed 50-year-old Roger Lee Smith, who had been employed at the shop for numerous years, as Smith came out the door to the parking lot. Then two armed employees, who had concealed carry permits, intervened. From floridatoday.com:
“The manager, who was a concealed weapons permit holder, came out and engaged in gunfire in the parking lot,” La Sata said. “The manager fled back inside the building, being chased by the gunman. Another Schlenker employee, who also had concealed weapons permit, engaged in gunfire with the suspect.”
Rockledge Chief Joseph Lasata (from the transcript of this video from wesh.com):
Mr. Baily had multiple magazines on his person. He was intent on doing harm. The employees stepped up and prevented customers, employees, and other vendors who were in the business at the time from sustaining further injuries. They did a good job.
The murder suspect, Robert Lorenzo Bailey, Jr, 28, of Cocoa, is in critical condition at the Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melborne. None of his history has been released.The suspect has not been connected to Schlenker Automotive.
This is the second time in three weeks armed citizens have intervened in a mass murder, preventing further murders from taking place. The first was Stephen Willeford, an NRA instuctor who grabbed his AR-15 and engaged the mass murderer at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas on November 5, 2017.
We do not know the names of the two armed citizens who stopped the casualty count at two in Rockledge, Florida on 25 November. We know they had concealed carry permits, and that citizens who carry guns legally are extremely law abiding.
When armed citizens intervene, lives are saved. Those who want a disarmed population use the effectiveness of interventions to claim they do not occur. As only one victim was killed before the murderer was stopped, some will say it was not a mass murder, therefore no one can say a mass murder was stopped by an armed citizen.
Here is a list, with links to more than two dozen cases where armed citizens stopped mass killing: Mass Killings Stopped by Armed Citizens, Updated
©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.