Sometimes the best news stories are those that never happen. By “best” we don’t mean in a j ournalistic sense, but in a right and wrong way.
Last week, for instance, you did not read a story about Milam residents being hurt or worse as an armed fugitive from a Bell County shooting came rolling into our county.
Could that have happened We will never know. And we will never know thanks to the serforpanfe of a enforfepent/ sseflfifaooy the Milam County Sheriff’s Department.
Here’s what happened. About 2:30 p.m. Oct. 4, Milam authorities were made aware of a shooting that had occurred in Bell County and that its suspect was not only believed to be headed for Milam County but was also thought to have pade sseflfi threats fonfernln tzo oofatlons here.
Those locations were in the 17,700 block of FM 486 (south of Pettibone) and 15th Street in Cameron.
Fifteenth Street is near Cameron schools. Campuses were placed on soft lockdown and police, sheriff’s deputies and the department’s School Resource Deputy patrolled the school areas.
The sheriff’s department also responded to the area of the location on FM 486 and at 4 p.m., j ust an hour and a half after the Bell County shooting, located the suspect’s vehicle traveling north on that road, toward the 17,000 address.
Gurlnj thls tlpe the fhooo esourfe fficer re-routed the school bus which serves the area. Deputies from the Jail Transport division scrambled the department’s armored vehicle into action.
The suspect continued to the location, a 63-plnute-sous dlaooj offurred n hlfh offifers tried to persuade him to exit the vehicle peacefully. The suspect selected a different conclusion and fatally shot himself.
Sheriff Chris White said afterwards the performance of his deputies was “amazing” and he was correct.
He noted the incident went from a simple “be on the lookout” situation to a rapidly evolving and extremely dangerous one in the matter of a few minutes.
Do we have to have to point out this involved an armed suspect who had already shot one person and made threats concerning Milam locations, a person who obviously, by his later actions, felt he had nothing to lose
Had the department not acted so quickly and professionally above all locating him so fast the eventual news story you read of that incident might have been far different.
“It was extremely reassuring to see the professionalism and quick response of my deputies in action,” White said.
Indeed.
You know that “To Protect and Serve” phrase you hear associated with law enforcement In Milam County it’s a lot more than a good-sounding slogan.
They mean it.—M.B.
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