Twenty-six years in law enforcement and I never had to use my gun. That\u2019s the way it should be. That\u2019s the way I always hoped it would be.<\/p>\n
Like I tell graduating cadets at the police academy: \u201cThe most important people in your career are the ones who love you, the ones who helped you get here today. Your job is to go home to them every evening. Don\u2019t get yourself into anything you can\u2019t get out of and stay safe for the ones you love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, it doesn\u2019t always work out that way, as I learned one chilly afternoon last December at the school district headquarters in Bay County, where I\u2019m head of the school police department.<\/p>\n
December 14 was supposed to be a vacation day for me. I\u2019d taken off the last week and a half before Christmas to get ready for a toy giveaway program I help run in town. The day before, weather reports had showed a big cold front moving in.<\/p>\n
The superintendent had asked me to work one more day to make sure that all of the district\u2019s buildings were prepped for the freeze (we don\u2019t get a lot of cold weather down here on the panhandle).<\/p>\n
I spent the morning driving around to schools checking on pipes. That afternoon I was at the district office. Four floors below me the school board was meeting in the ground floor boardroom. My cell phone rang.<\/p>\n
\u201cMike,\u201d said a female voice I didn\u2019t immediately recognize, \u201cthere\u2019s someone with a gun in the boardroom and we can\u2019t tell if it\u2019s real or fake. Please get down here!\u201d She hung up.<\/p>\n
Training overrode my shock. I raced down the stairs. It can\u2019t have taken more than a minute to get down to the ground floor but suddenly I felt like time had stopped and I was running through a tunnel.<\/p>\n
My heart beat fast, my muscles tensed. I saw in a flash all my years as a police officer.<\/p>\n
My dad had been an auxiliary policeman and my uncle had worked for highway patrol. Straight out of high school I\u2019d worked odd jobs till I could afford the academy. I\u2019d joined the Panama City department the day I graduated.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d seen it all and worked every beat from patrolman to sergeant to homicide detective. I\u2019d retired, then come back for more with the school district after a stint on the school board.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d fired my gun plenty of times in my career\u2014at the shooting range. Mostly I\u2019d learned how to stay true to that advice I gave to new recruits. I kept safe. I talked shooters into putting down their guns. I never did anything rash, never tried to be a foolish hero.<\/p>\n
For over 20 years I\u2019d come home every night to my wife Colleen. I\u2019d never had to ask God whether I\u2019d done the right thing shooting someone. I\u2019d never felt the dread I was feeling now. Please, Lord, keep us safe.<\/em><\/p>\n The boardroom was behind a pair of double doors just down the hall from the building\u2019s main entrance. I wasn\u2019t wearing a police uniform\u2014as an administrator I rarely do\u2014but I did have a small .38-caliber pistol in a holster clipped to my khaki trousers. I drew the gun and cracked open one of the doors.<\/p>\n Straight ahead, past rows of upholstered seats with room for about 150 people, sat six members of the school board at a long desk.<\/p>\n Ginger Littleton, the only woman on the board, wasn\u2019t there. The rest of the room was empty except for a tall, heavyset man in a dark sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes pacing around in front of the board members.<\/p>\n The man carried a large automatic pistol in his right hand.<\/p>\n Right away I knew this was a hostage situation. The man for some unknown reason was holding the board at gunpoint. He\u2019d told everyone else, including spectators and all the women in the room, to leave.<\/p>\n There might not be enough time to keep this guy talking until the SWAT team arrived, which is one way of dealing with a hostage-taker. And my little .38-caliber pistol was no match for that man\u2019s automatic.<\/p>\n I had five shots. This guy would riddle everyone in the boardroom with bullets before I could empty my chamber.<\/p>\n There was only one thing to do. I had to get to my car parked a few hundred feet away and grab my automatic pistol and bulletproof vest, which I kept in a lockbox in the back hatch.<\/p>\n I would have to confront this man. I would have to put myself between him and the board members.<\/p>\n \u201cSir,\u201d I called to him. I wanted him to know I was there before I ducked away. \u201cHow you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n The man turned. \u201cOh, one of the cops,\u201d he said\u2014my parka had the word Police<\/em> on it. I tried to get a glimpse of his face. Was he deranged? Angry? He didn\u2019t look scared at all.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019m just a school safety officer,\u201d I told him. \u201cYou got a real gun there?\u201d The man began walking toward me.<\/p>\n \u201cCome on in,\u201d he said. He sounded aggressive, not one bit afraid. I closed the door and sprinted to my Ford Explorer. I yanked out my gun and threw the bulletproof vest over my parka, not even bothering to cinch it shut.<\/p>\n I raced back to the boardroom, hoping against hope that my brief exchange with the man had bought the board members some time.<\/p>\n The moment I opened the door I heard a shot. The man stood directly in front of the board members, pointing his gun at the superintendent, Bill Husfelt.<\/p>\n Bill\u2019s body jerked back. The other board members dove behind the desk. I was too late!<\/p>\n The man fired again. I stepped into the room, raised my weapon, aimed and squeezed the trigger. The man stumbled forward.<\/p>\n I shot him again. The man fell to the floor with a grunt. I stepped farther into the room, hoping that now that he was wounded the man would surrender.<\/p>\n His arm jerked up and he fired at me. Shot after shot. I dove behind a row of seats and returned fire over the seat-top, trying to keep the man pinned down.<\/p>\n The world seemed to close in even more. I heard nothing but the popping of the bullets. Everything was by instinct.<\/p>\n The firing stopped. Cautiously I raised my head. The man was on the ground, his gun pointed at his own head. Before I could do or say anything the man pulled the trigger. He died instantly.<\/p>\n Bill.<\/em> I raced to the shooter\u2019s body to make sure he was dead. I grabbed his gun and flung it away. One by one the board members\u2019 heads lifted from behind their desk.<\/p>\n Then Bill\u2019s head rose up. He stood. He was alive! Oh, Lord, I\u2019m either dead and in heaven or Bill and everyone else really did make it, <\/em>I thought.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m alive, Mike,\u201d said Bill. \u201cI\u2019m alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone else okay?\u201d I choked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re okay!\u201d they cried.<\/p>\n At that moment the tunnel that had closed in around me widened and suddenly I was back in normal time, back in the world. Between us, we\u2019d fired 18 rounds in 13 seconds.<\/p>\n I fell to my knees and the full impact of everything that had just happened slammed into me and I burst out crying. The board members staggered out from behind their desk and we all just stared at each other.<\/p>\n Then we looked at the man lying on the floor. Behind Bill\u2019s seat two bullet holes marked the wall\u2014somehow the man\u2019s bullets had ricocheted off the desk and lodged there, missing Bill by inches.<\/p>\n Six more holes scarred a wall at the back of the room\u2014they formed a perfect circle, exactly where my head had been just seconds before I dove behind the seats. If I\u2019d waited even one more instant, I would not have gone home to Colleen. I would not have lived.<\/p>\n Minutes later the SWAT team arrived. Paramedics tended to me, and before I knew it I was being loaded into an ambulance. My heart was going 188 beats a minute. They ended up having to sedate me to bring the rate down.<\/p>\n When I came to in the hospital, Colleen was there at my bedside. It was night. By the grace of God I was alive and with my wife.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a year since that harrowing December afternoon. I\u2019ve been on TV to talk about the shooting many times and given lots of speeches. I always give thanks for God\u2019s protection, but I do not in any way celebrate that day.<\/p>\n The man I shot was not just some crime statistic. His name was Clay Duke. He was in the boardroom that day because his wife, a schoolteacher, had recently been laid off in a round of budget cuts.<\/p>\n He was a troubled man with a criminal record and extremist views. Still, he was a human being and I do not believe that God ever intends for people\u2019s lives to end in tragedy.<\/p>\n I know God was present in that boardroom that day and I pray that he ministered to Clay Duke\u2019s troubled soul.<\/p>\n I believe that serving in law enforcement is one of the most solemn trusts a person can be given. Police officers have the power to save lives and to take life.<\/p>\n And so even after being called a hero for protecting the Bay County school board, I still give my same advice to new recruits. It\u2019s the ones we love who mean the most.<\/p>\n We honor them and we honor God when we remember that and do everything we can to come home safe at the end of every day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n