Posted on 05/05/2015 8:50:33 PM PDT by servo1969
More details are beginning to emerge about the incompetent Islamic terrorist attack on a free speech event held by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) in Garland, Texas Sunday. Bearing Arms readers have asked for more details about how the actual shooting went down, and about the Garland police officer who used his duty sidearm to defeat two attackers armed with rifles within 15 seconds.
Please keep in mind that we don’t have all the details about the attack, the individual officer’s response, or the exact steps law enforcement took once the attack began, and that even if we had that information, we would withhold such details which may be useful for any other would-be terrorists attempting future attacks.
That said, we will provide analysis of some key pieces of publicly available information.
* * *
At the point of the attack, the two suspects apparently drove up and opened fire upon an unarmed security guard who was accompanied by a 60-year-old Garland police officer. The unarmed guard was struck the volley of gunfire. The veteran Garland officer then drew his duty-issue Glock pistol and opened fire on the suspects.
The officer killed one terrorist and wounded the other in his initial volley of return fire. Witnesses claim there was a brief pause, and then the officer fire two more shots to kill the still-moving terrorist as he appears to be reaching for a backpack. The entire event lasted 15 seconds, with heavily-armed Garland SWAT converging on the scene immediately afterward.
We’re not going to mention any more about the officer who took out these terrorists, only that to give an idea of his approximate position in relation to the terrorists as he engaged them.
The evidence markers at the bottom of the photo above show us a remarkable story, as they denote the final locations of the shell casings ejected from the officer’s Glock duty pistol. While every pistol is different from another in its ejection pattern, and the movement of the officer and the cant of his gun precludes us from knowing exactly where he was, there, is a distinct trial of shells showing that the officer was moving forward from the bottom left of the photo above towards the terrorists at the rear of the vehicle. He appears to have opened fire from 20 yards away, and fired at least a dozen shots by the time he reached an area near the traffic cones, roughly 7-10 yards from where the terrorists died.
Second photo taken from the opposite angle (below) seems to confirm this determined officer’s advance on the terrorists while firing.
Note: the damage to the vehicle driven by the terrorists was from controlled demolitions from EOD units ensuring that the car was not a VBIED (vehicle-borne improvised explosive device).
There seems to be a great deal of skepticism regarding whether or not the suspects were wearing body armor and whether they were armed with “automatic weapons” or “assault rifles” or something else entirely. Other photos from the crime scene suggest answers to those questions as well.
In the image above, we have drawn an orange rectangle around what appears to be blood-drenched halves of a soft body armor carrier worn by one of the terrorists. Most people don’t seem to grasp that there are multiple grades of soft body armor, that these materials degrade over time, and that the armor panels themselves do not often cover the entire torso, leaving gaps under the arms, below the ribs, and at the neck.
We simply don’t know if the officer’s bullets compromised the armor or went around the armor panels, but it is quite clear that there was soft body armor worn by at least one of the terrorists, and that it did not prevent him from being quickly taken out of of the fight.
Did the terrorists have “automatic weapons” as some mainstream media outlets initially claimed?
The media claim of “automatic weapons” or “machine guns” is always to be discounted until positively affirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt by firearms experts (not law enforcement public information officers), simply based on how difficult it is to obtain automatic weapons in the United States.
What we do have is two separate images that appear to show long guns recovered at the scene. We’ve taken part of the image above and flipped it vertically below in an effort to better determine what we’re looking at.
It isn’t anything we immediately recognize, though we can say for certain that it doesn’t appear to be any centerfire variant or an AR-15 or AKM. While the photo we have to work with is frankly horrible, our best guess is that The firearm we’re looking at is a most likely Kel-Tec SUB-2000, a popular and inexpensive pistol caliber carbine shown below.
Partially obscured behind evidence marker 34 is what appears to be a firearm with an AR-15-type front sight post, but the quality of the image and amount of the gun covered by the evidence marker make it impossible to tell what we’re really looking at.
Is this a legitimate centerfire AR-15? Is this a rimfire copy? Is this an airgun, designed to look enough like an AR-15 to win a jihadi his martyrdom?
Frankly, I’m tempted to think that we’re looking at a “faux-15″ martyrdom special or a .22 clone, considering we’ve not be able to track down credible reports of the distinctively different reports of a centerfire rifle fire, and the confirmed Glock pistol-fire from the Garland officer.
We’re not ruling out the possibility that this was a centerfire AR-15 recovered at the scene, we’re simply noting that there wasn’t much evidence suggesting it was able to be brought into play by the terrorists.
* * *
No matter how you break down the details, this was an incredible display of bravery and marksmanship by this 30+ year veteran of the Garland Police Department, who not only resisted the natural urge to create distance between yourself and rifle-armed assailants, but who appears to have done precisely the opposite, and who advanced while firing accurately, bringing the attack to a swift conclusion without a single additional casualty once he brought his weapon to bear.
Determined people with good training and a decent handgun can indeed defeat the most zealous fanatic.
Get out there and train folks. Maybe one day it will be your turn to be the one standing on the line defending liberty from savagery.
Update: We’d like to thank Kaitian for finding a higher resolution image of the SUB-2000 used in the attack, which we’ve swapped out in the story above.
@bob_owens Don’t know if you know but there’s a higher resolution picture of the gun used. https://t.co/39OmgBAclL
Kaitian (@Kaitian1) May 5, 2015
LOL!
Dedicate a mohamhead cartoon to ole willy?
100% agree
So does my niece! Stunningly beautiful girl, early 20s, whose two favorite things are hunting and her truck.
Virginia is a beautiful state. I once lived there, for about four years when I was a child.
Misguided liberal tool acting the fool more than likely.... he begone now by golly !!
Stay Safe !!!
My girl seems to dislike pistols except for their looks.
We have to find a range now.
Thanks to Chris Christy, and some rule changes, we can’t use the nearby range in the watergap.
Erick Erickson has some thoughts about conFRonting Evil:
“The Western World and its elite have repeatedly tried to placate evil and not make eye contact with it. Neville Chamberlain sought peace in our time. Jimmy Carter sought detente with the Soviet Union. Now Barack Obama cannot even call the Islamic State by what it is — a potent form of Islam. . .”
For the rest of his article, see: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/02/20/a_failure_to_confront_evil_125673.html
Taxman Bravo Zulu for your post! It deserves repeating:
“God bless Pamela Geller and other like-minded souls who are courageously fighting the good fight against incredible odds. They are the heroes here and the fools such as O’Reilly who conform to the establishment views are cowards or, at best, lack all discernment. “
latest muslim advisory:
Urgent...Urgent
Stay away from old men. It’s all a trick.
First the old Usher of the Black Rod in Ottawa last year and now this in Garland Texas.
Repeat...Stay away from old white infidels, they will keel you!
Achmed the Terrorist
And from my home page in need of some maintenance.......:o)
“The five oldest and most trusted Islamic sources dont portray Muhammad as a great and godly man. They confirm that he was a thief, liar, assassin, mass murderer, terrorist, warmonger, and an unrestrained sexual pervert engaged in pedophilia, incest, and rape. He authorized deception, assassinations, torture, slavery, and genocide. He was a pirate, not a prophet. According to the Hadith and the Quran, Muhammad and his henchmen plundered their way to power and prosperity”
I will “prey” for those zipper headed Jihidi junk jugglers at every opportunity......
Can’t thank you enough, dear friend.
Yep.....yep...yep.....good points all !!!
I have a very nice concealed-carry purse that I take everywhere.
It looks perfectly normal, but the gun and spare mags make it a
bit heavy. Places that are “gun-free zones?” I just don’t mention
that I’m armed. It’s my permit, my business, and nobody else’s.
Thank you. I do love it here. I never get tired of seeing the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance.
Islam has been Evil FRom the get-go!
In Mecca, beginning in 610 AD, Mohammed preached without much success. In fact, Meccans persecuted Mohammed and his followers for 12 years to the effect that Mohammad, his relatives, and his followers emigrated (Hijra) to Medina in 622.
In Medina, Mohammed and his thugs (because that is certainly what they were) discovered the sword was more persuasive than mere preaching, and the die was cast.
Mohammed, now deemed a “Warrior-Priest” spent ten years spreading Islam via the sword before he died in 632 AD.
If anything, since Mohammed died, the cult has become evern more bloodthirsty: Islam is reponsible for in excess of 270 million deaths since 622 AD!
There may be “good” Moslems, but Islam certainly is not!
That was Trump? Oh, dear. ;-)
Access to the mountains and the ocean. Does it get any better than that?
Interesting. I didn’t see mine there, but the purses were all quite
attractive. Mine is black and I can unzip the carry compartment
and draw my gun in seconds.
Exactly right. Your Constituonal right trumps a "gun-free zone."
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