An Oklahoma mother’s routine grocery trip turned into a terrifying ordeal after one of her girls was taken hostage in a deadly standoff.
Alicia K. was shopping at her local Wal-Mart when she turned her back to grab an item, unaware as a complete stranger walked up to her cart and picked up her 2-year-old daughter Zoey.
The stranger walked away with the child in his arms while Alicia understandably became hysterical.
The mother began screaming, pleading with the man to let her daughter go.
According to Alicia, as she pleaded with the kidnapper he told her, “Hey, little mamma. You see this knife?”
Meanwhile, other shoppers in the store called 911. One caller told dispatchers, “There’s someone with a knife holding a little girl hostage.”
Police officers descended on the Wal-Mart, clearing the store as soon as they could.
Multiple officers made contact with the suspect, who was identified as 37-year old Sammie Wallace.
As Wallace continued to hold a knife to the toddler’s neck, police negotiators offered Wallace a chair to sit down.
Why police would offer the criminal a chair? They wanted to keep the suspect as still as possible.
In the event a police sniper was able to take a shot, a stationary subject is going to be easier to hit than someone walking around.
For over 30 minutes, police negotiators tried to convince Wallace to let the child go.
Suddenly, Wallace started a 60-second countdown that he warned would end up with him harming the child.
Obviously, when negotiations breakdown, police have no choice but to act.
That’s when police Captain David Huff walked up to Wallace, who was talking to another officer and shot him point-blank in the head killing him.
According to Midwest City’s assistant police chief, “When you have a suspect that starts counting down on a child’s life, we’re going to have to take appropriate action and unfortunately we had to use deadly force.”
Thankfully, the child was unharmed and immediately returned to her mother.
The fact is, when firing a weapon at point blank range, there are 2 important aspects to take into account.
What I mean is, when we go to the shooting range we typically train to shoot between 5 yards and 25 yards.
However, shooting at contact range is different and will involve these elements…
Physical fight. Most shootings at point blank range will come after a physical confrontation.
For instance, maybe you are walking through a parking garage when someone grabs you from behind.
For this reason, I’m a big advocate of training to block an attacker while drawing your weapon at the same time.
In other words, with your off hand, you want to try to block the attacker’s punches, then safely draw your firearm.
This is why you need to practice drawing and shooting with one-hand only.
Pistol battery. If the muzzle of your pistol is pressed against your intended target, with even a light amount of pressure, you can force the gun out of battery.
Basically, this means you may only get off one round and it might not chamber a second round.
This is why you want to keep your gun close to your body (my wrist touches my rib cage) when firing close quarters.
You don’t want to extend out and take the chance of the gun going out of battery.
Plus, the further you extend, the less control you have over the gun, so the criminal could take it.
Being involved in a close quarter shooting is something many folks simply don’t train for.
Next time you are at the range, consider firing a few rounds at point blank range.
You never know when your attacker may bring the fight to you or be distracted long enough for you to take a life-saving shot on him.
