“Someone’s beating
the front door in,” my wife said frantically, waking me at 5:45 a.m. I grabbed the
semi-automatic rifle for me and the .22 for my son, who was sleeping upstairs.
I ran to the door. “Who is it?” I asked.
“Open the Goddamn door,”
a man shouted, repeatedly kicking the door.
My son heard the
commotion and came downstairs. I threw him the .22. I cocked my SKS. When it
clicked, all went silent. Then I heard murmured conversation and footsteps
shuffling away. I told my son to cover the upstairs window. “If I start
shooting,” I whispered. “Open fire and don’t stop until they’re on the ground.”
It seemed like a
dream or a movie scene. I’d bought my rifle years before all the l mass
shootings and controversy over assault weapons. I’d only shot it once. Like
many gun owners, I thought I might need it for protection, but hoped I’d never
have to use it.
I glided to my
dining room window, peeked through the curtains and saw three men who looked to
be in their early twenties. One of them opened the rear door of their van and
pulled out a handgun.
I opened the
curtains just wide enough for a good shot and positioned my rifle.
My wife took cover
in the back bathroom and called 911.
“Tell ‘em they’ve
got a gun,” I said.
“I’m talking to
the dispatcher,” she replied in a raspy whisper. “She said they’re on the way.”
“Tell her they’re
coming back toward the house. I might have to shoot.”
The man with the
gun started up our sidewalk, the other two followed. I flipped the safety off and
took aim. Surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous. I realized I was going to have to kill
at least one man, maybe three. I could’ve heard a pin drop. I was not anxious
to pull the trigger, but told myself that if he got halfway up our sidewalk, I had
no choice. I couldn’t give them a chance to get into the
house with that gun. None of the three men noticed the open curtain I hid
behind. The man with the gun neared the halfway mark. I whispered to my wife,
“Tell the dispatcher I’ve got to shoot.”
I positioned my
finger on the trigger. Just as I started to pull it, the other two men grabbed
the man with the gun. They appeared to argue, then rushed back to the van. I breathed
a sigh of relief, but kept them in my sights. The man opened the van’s back
door. I couldn’t tell if he was putting the gun back or getting guns for the
other men. I was still wondering if I should open fire when a police car skidded
into our driveway. Several more followed. In seconds our yard was swarming with
law enforcement.
The two men
must’ve heard the police coming. That’s why they grabbed their buddy.
My son came
downstairs. I put the weapons away. When
I opened my front door, I saw officers surrounding the three men. My son came and
stood with me. Two deputies met us at the door. I told them what had happened, and
how thankful I was that they arrived before I had to shoot. The deputies said
the three men were bounty hunters who had come to take my son to jail in South
Carolina for leaving the state without permission. My son had been arrested for
illegal possession of a prescription drug in South Carolina. He explained to
the deputies how a judge had given him permission to return home to Kentucky
while awaiting his court date. While my son went to get the court papers, the
deputies told me that bounty hunters can enter a fugitive’s home to make an
arrest in South Carolina, but bounty hunters were illegal in Kentucky. The
deputies did not hide their disdain for the young men, who had apparently tried
to argue their case for being there.
“Do you want to
press charges on them?” one of the deputies asked.
“No,” I said. “I
just want ‘em out of here.”
As I walked with
the two deputies toward the three men still surrounded by officers, I kept
thinking how a simple bureaucratic mix up had put my family in danger, and how close
I’d come to killing three men because of it. Almost daily, there are news stories
about the war on drugs or gun laws. Those stories always seem to apply to
somebody else, but on that day, without any warning whatsoever, a minor drug
possession charge and a clerical error could’ve possibly caused the death of my
wife, my son and myself, or put me in the national headlines for killing three
bounty hunters.
Now, whenever I
hear the news about how someone was shot in a horrible mishap, I think, “there
but for the grace of God, and the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, go I.”
Bernard
Mitchell Plumlee
