A Durham, North Carolina, police officer proved his shooting skills when he aced a “hostage shot,” saving a woman’s life in the process.
Dennis Lawrence, 26, was in the process of holding a McDonald’s employee hostage when Sgt. Glen Price entered the premises. Price saw that Lawrence had his arm wrapped around the woman’s neck, and believing the victim was in imminent danger, he fired a single shot.
“Every indication was that he was going to harm and was capable of killing the victim,” said Police Chief Jose. L Lopez.
The round whizzed past the woman’s head and struck Lawrence in the face. The employee escaped uninjured, but Lawrence was transported to an area hospital to be treated for his non-life threatening wounds.
Lawrence was charged with two counts of assault on a female and two counts of communicating threats.
The shooting is being investigated by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the Durham Police Department’s Professional Standards Division and Criminal Investigations Division, which is pretty much standard procedure across all agencies for any officer-involved shooting.
“This is a real serious example of what officers have to go through on a daily basis,” said Lopez. Split-second decisions that involve the lives of others.”
(This article was a submission from freelance writer Brent Rogers)
“Assault on a female”?
Boy, let’s infantilize women some more, shall we?
I think its time to re-evaluate ammo/projectiles/or the caliber being used by those officers. Shot in the face and its non-life threatening?! I wouldn’t trust them after that.
Its also a great example of what everyday citizens have to deal with everyday.
Good for the officer, and Damn good for the employee, it’s not very often that the media highlights a, for lack of better terms, “good shoot”. That criminal better thank god, Allah, Yahweh, or whoever decided he got a second chance, Idk about everybody else’s knowledge but as far as I know it’s not very often you get shot in the face and survive. Everybody go and practice your point and shoot from the draw!
Great job officer! You have nerves of steel and a woman is alive today because of it. The only thing that would have improved this story would have been a dead perp. As everybody know that he’ll do it again when he gets out.