I’ll bet the lore is already out there among the ‘good guy with a gun’ crowd. But the truth finally got it’s boots on. Two convicts managed to escape from a prisoner transport bus in Georgia, killing two guards, and went on the lam.
SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The man credited by law enforcement with holding two Georgia prison escapees at gunpoint until police arrived rejected the “hero” label the day after their capture and said credit should go to forces well beyond his control.
“I realized I had two ex-cons wanted for murder who had just shot at law enforcement who had nothing to lose and for some reason they surrendered and laid down on the concrete in my driveway,” Patrick Hale said Friday. “If that doesn’t make you believe in Jesus Christ, I don’t know what does.”
They ransacked houses to change clothes, invaded homes, tied people up and stole cars until they wound up in close pursuit by law enforcement officers.
Hale said friends had just alerted him that the fugitives wanted in the slayings of two prison guards had been spotted in his area of rural Tennessee, so he quickly loaded his guns. Moments later, he saw them climb over his fence and approach his home, where he was alone with his little girl.
He decided to flee — getting into his car with his girl. Then, just as he prepared for the worst, the inmates took off their shirts and waved them in the air in a sign of surrender. He thinks they mistook his car for a law enforcement vehicle.
He said he never had to pull out his weapon — but the wait was agonizing. More than 45 police officers began showing up within three minutes, he said.
From the photo of him, and probably his wife, at the AP home page he looks to be in his 30’s.
The chase ended with a crash near the community of Christiana, Tennessee. With deputies in hot pursuit, the suspects left the weapons they had stolen from their guards in the couple’s wrecked car, and ran through trees to Hale’s property.
[Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Bill] Miller said the homeowner held them at gunpoint until deputies arrived. But Hale said he wanted to set the record straight: “I had a weapon on me, but I never had to draw the weapon as has been in the news.”
TBI Director Mark Gwyn said he’s “totally grateful to everyone involved.”
I hope Hale gets a nice piece of that reward, nonetheless because Jayzus. The AP’s saga, as it exists now is quite the adventure.
apnews.com/...