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The Whitman deal happened in 1966.

An important note, the young guys (mostly U of T students, possibly all students) went to their pickups and retrieved their .22 rimfire rifles from the gun racks. In 1966 this was not an uncommon thing at all in Texas, indeed even at UT.

They then proceeded to harass Whitman from behind cover with their .22s until the APD arrived. Two APD officers ran up the stairs and caught Whitman flat footed and shot him dead. My recollection of what I read about it is vague, but I seem to recall that Whitman not only had wounds consistent with the police weapons but he also had been hit by .22 fire.

I'm not sure about this either, but someone here posted that one civilian ran up the steps with the cops at the same time. That could have happened, but it would never happen these days.

It's a matter of opinion of course, but a salient point would be about the choice of caliber for a firearm in such a defensive situation. I think I'd opt for the .22 myself, yes the one in my truck (remember it's 1966 and not 2022, after all) rather than a deer rifle, lest I accidentally kill someone in the next county. Remember, all you gotta do is hit him bad enough to mess up his aim.

There were more than just .22s getting slung at him and not by just the police either. A general response grew as the gravity of the situation sunk in and word spread around. The dude had quite a reach from his position with no opposition until skilled citizens began returning fire with large caliber weapons to try to suppress his activity. There was no such thing as SWAT at that time so an ad hoc resistance had to do until somebody could get to him. A general call went out for any skilled marksmen i.e. ex-military snipers, benchrest competitors, etc. to come report to Austin but they got him before that organized. There was concern he may have done a good job of barricading himself in as to be safely unreachable, resulting in a protracted sniper vs sniper contest until they got him. That's the info I gathered from talking to people who were there.

Thanks for the info. I do remember it a little (I was 12) and it was huge.
One documentary I saw, and even the TV movie had a civilian involved in Whitman’s takedown. I do remember someone having a 12 gauge, but that could’ve been a “Hollywood addition”.
I am going to have to re-visit that.

We had one close to us back in 2008:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Illinois_University_shooting

One of my wife’s friend’s daughter was in that class, she decided to skip class that particular day, Thank God.
We were living in Rockford at that time. It was truly awful.