Anything Smart: Good Cop: Better Get Small

This post originally appeared on my old Good Cops and Bad Cops blog on 14-September-2015. And now it's here.

Fifty-one year old Lieutenant Brian Murphy was a 21 year veteran of the Oak Creek, Wisconsin police department. He had served in the Marine Corps for five years before that. At 10:25 AM on 5 August 2012 Murphy heard the report over his radio of possible shots fired at a local Sikh temple. Arriving at the scene first, he parked his car sideways for cover and tried to unlatch his AR-15 rifle but it wouldn't come loose.

Murphy saw two victims on the ground and moved closer to see if he could help. When he got within 10 feet he could see the victims were already dead and he decided to make another attempt to get his AR-15.

As Murphy turned back to his car he saw the shooter running for a truck. The shooter was Wade Michael Page an ex-GI and a neo-nazi who played in racist rock bands. Murphy yelled for Page to stop and the murderer raised his gun. They both fired at the same time from 30-40 yards. Murphy missed and took a bullet in the chin that also tore up his larynx.

Murphy lost sight of the shooter and got behind his car. The killer circled around and opened fire again. Murphy got hit in the thumb and thought, "Man that's gonna leave a mark." He was hit in the thigh and the upper arm and thought, "Better get small."

Murphy tried to crawl away and got hit in the back of his bullet proof vest. He remembered, "It got very quiet. It got nice and warm. Cozy. I started closing my eyes for a second." Then he decided, "I'm not going out like this. I'm not gonna let my wife down. I'm not gonna let my daughter down."

Murphy crawled some more while Page reloaded and opened fire again. Murphy was hit in the back of the arm, the back of the leg, the back of his skull and he thought, "Jesus Christ, are you ever going to run out of bullets?"

As Page drew even closer, maybe as close as six feet, Murphy thought, "If he gets close enough, there's a knife in your pocket. Stab his ass. Kill the son of a bitch," and then, "My wife is gonna be so mad. We had a vacation to the Florida Keys coming up in less than two weeks."

***

[This looks like a book I will enjoy reading. If you beat me to it please send me a review I can publish here at AnythingSmart.

If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one below to buy your books. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission. Thanks!]

***

More cops finally arrived, Page was shot by one of them, and then killed himself in the parking lot.

As fellow officers rushed up to help Murphy he waved them off; with at least eight bullet wounds from a 9mm pistol he was bleeding heavily but he waved them off and tried, with his shattered voice, to send them into the Temple to help the victims inside where six people had been murdered.

"As they approached him, he waved them off and told them to go into the temple to assist those wounded there," Police Chief Edwards said.

“He could walk through walls, that guy,” his Dad said. “It’s terrible he had to take all those bullets, but he was helping people who were in real trouble.”

Murphy was later honored by a Sikh group who said, "We are highly grateful to him for his sacrifice and exemplary service to law and order and providing protection to all citizens of Oak Creek, including the members of the Sikh community in Wisconsin."

For putting his life on the line and for putting the safety of others ahead of his own we honor Lieutenant Brian Murphy as a very good cop.

For more information click on the links below.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Good Cop: Better Get Small

No comments:

Post a Comment