A citizen with a gun stopped a knife wielding man as he began stabbing people Thursday evening at the downtown Salt Lake City Smith’s store.
Police say the suspect purchased a knife inside the store and then turned it into a weapon. Smith’s employee Dorothy Espinoza says, “He pulled it out and stood outside the Smiths in the foyer. And just started stabbing people and yelling you killed my people. You killed my people.”
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Then, before the suspect could find another victim – a citizen with a gun stopped the madness. “A guy pulled gun on him and told him to drop his weapon or he would shoot him. So, he dropped his weapon and the people from Smith’s grabbed him.”
I’m not one to hate the police, but I am realistic about them: police are rarely there when you need them. If you want to keep yourself safe, you have to be prepared and able to handle some situations without the illusion of safety that is the idea that the police will magically save you. Quite often, the police are the folks who show up after the bad bits are over.
That isn’t a negative comment; it’s just reality. Police have no more fantastical ability to be everywhere at once than I do.
I note this as a person who has wished like hell that the police would show up and save the day– and at the end of that day, wished that I had been armed so that I could have done a better job of protecting myself and the young lady who was with me that evening. While neither of us was harmed that evening, it took a significant amount of quick thinking and putting both of us in harm’s way to escape the danger.
So cheers to the unnamed citizen in the report who acted to help stop a bad situation. Well done.