Just doing her job? Maybe. But, cop or not, ex-military or not, it takes some serious intestinal fortitude to do what she did.
New York Daily News:
Friends hail police Sgt. Kimberly Munley for taking down Fort Hood gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan
by Rich Schapiro
The hero cop who ended the bloody rampage at Fort Hood by pumping four bullets into the crazed gunman even though she was wounded is known for her toughness, friends say.
Before relocating to Texas, civilian police Sgt. Kimberly Munley spent about five years as a cop in North Carolina where she forged a reputation as a no-nonsense officer.
"I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm really not," said close friend Drew Peterson, 27.
"She was born and bread to be a police officer. If you were ever to be in a fight, she'd be the first person to stand up next to you and back you up. She's a tough cookie."
Munley's toughness and grace under pressure were on display Thursday when she and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire, said Army Lt. Gen. Bob Cone.
Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.
"It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer," Cone said.
Munley was only a few feet from Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.
Wounded in the exchange of bullets, the 34-year-old Munley was reported in stable condition at a local hospital.
The diminutive Munley - she stands 5-foot-4 and weighs about 120 pounds - served as a cop in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., before she moved to Texas to enlist in the military, friends said.
She is married with two daughters and is no longer in the armed forces.
"She's the happiest, sweetest, most fun-loving girl you'd ever want to be friends with - and never want to cross," Peterson said.
Munley could not be reached Friday. In a posting on her Twitter page, she wrote: "I live a good life....a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone's life."
The hero cop spent Thursday night phoning fellow officers to let them know she was fine and to find out about casualties in the attack - the deadliest ever on a military base in the U.S., Cone said.
Cone said Munley's aggressive response training taught her that "if you act aggressively to take out a shooter you will have less fatalities."
"She walked up and engaged him," he said. He praised her as "one of our most impressive young police officers."
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What is it with American Women stopping massacres?
18 comments:
And, just for the record, the second women pictured had a Muslim name (though she was a Christian) and she is from Lebanon, as I recall.
Yes, exactly. Jeanne Assam.
Well, Lebanese, though born here.
Ah, I didn't realize she was American-born.
This reminds me of another incident in which a complete massacre was averted: The 2002 LAX Bradley International Terminal Shooting. An Egyptian jihadist (hashem mohamed) pulled out two handguns and started firing into an El Al check-in line at point-blank range. Two people were killed instantly and another two were wounded. This event would have been a complete massacre had not a quick-thinking security agent drawn his pistol and shot that jihadist swine to death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesham_mohamed_hadayet
Munley-Palin Bachmann-Blackburn (TN) Assam...Hmmmmm-OK - Guys....
Camille Paglia once opined that if women had been "in charge" of civilization, we'd all be living in mud huts still - civilization building requires the action that only testosterone can fuel.
But even accepting that premise, if we did not have the "preserving" action of estrogen, we'd still be in mud huts, because with only testosterone, the guys would just keep on blowing it up!!
Just being a bit facetious, but there is something to the "preserving" instinct in women that drives to protect.
You can kind of see it in those womens' faces, can't you?
Thank God for them.
Ro
Ro,
You're the greatest. I'm a big fan of Camille Paglia too.
Have you ever read her book Sexual Personae?
I think your point is absolutely on the money. Guys would/could never build a civilization without women.
One of the other reasons for that is we just do the shit we do to impress you girls.
:)
Total,
Thanks for bringing up the El-Al Bradley Terminal Jihadi attack.
I was in Paris at the time. As I recall, it was July 4th. I can't tell you how angry I was sitting in Paris on the 4th of July and hearing that news.
I felt completely displaced.
That was back before I had blogging as an outlet.
Now, the following is going to sound like it couldn't be true, but it is. When I arrived in Europe (Heathrow London), the first thing I noticed were military combat helicopters and guys with machine guns around the airport. I got my bags, and took a train to the center of London. Just before we entered a tunnel, the train stopped and we were told there had been a bomb threat, so we would have to wait until they cleared whether there really was a bomb or not.
We spent a few days in London (in one of the neighborhoods where the 7/7 attacks happened. We took the Tube everyday. The trains were filled with Muslims, and so were the streets. The name of the neighborhood was Queensgate, as I recall.
After a few days, we took the train (through the Chunnel) to Paris. In the Parisian Trains Depot, there was a very sickening PC display of art and information on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. I thought that was a strange introduction to Paris, to say the least.
When we got in the cab to go to our hotel, the cab driver was a ME-looking man. He radiated anger from his being in the same way that Mohammed Atta did in those photographs. I tried to "chat" with him, but he wouldn't answer my questions. He just kept glaring at me through the rear-view mirror. I was wondering if I was going to have to resort to violence to get my family out of a bad situation. Alas not, thankfully.
We stayed in a neighborhood in Paris called the Trocadero. One day, I walked down the street a block or so and went into a bookstore (which was a futile exercise, since I don't speak French well enough to read a book). But what I found was fascinating. Two books were displayed among a few others on the front rack. Their titles were;
Les juifs, le monde et l'argent
http://www.amazon.com/juifs-monde-largent-Jacques-Attali/dp/2213610444
and
L'Pentagate:
http://www.amazon.com/Pentagate-Thierry-Meyssan/dp/1592090281
I bought L'Pentagate as a testimony/arhive to the times we live in.
The only place I have been, in all my travels, that was stranger than Paris was the backwoods of South Carolina.
I would have to have an awful good reason to ever go back there.
I was on the same page with you, Pasto. At the time of the attack, I was in Sweden visiting relatives and it left me feeling completely deflated. My mom used to be a flight attendant for El-Al back in the 60s and 70s and even worked on the flight that brought the bodies of Israeli athletes back to Israel from Munich in '73. When I heard about the 2002 shooting incident, it definitely hit close to home, especially with the El Al connection as well as me being an Angeleno. I was, however, very happy at the way the security agent quickly dropped that jihadi scumbag. Like I said before, it would have been a bloodbath had he not acted as quickly as he did.
Pasto,
I was in Paris this last March with my girlfriend and I too recieved "the glare". I was at a cafe having breakfast and coffee with my girlfriend and there were two Middle Eastern patrons there (in their 20s or 30s). I never exchanged a word with them and more or less ignored their vile presence, but all they did was glare at me as if they wanted to kill me the entire time. Even when I looked the other way, I could see them giving me the stare of death through a mirror on the side. Even as I left and was walking in the street, they were glaring through the window as if I spat in their faces.
Total,
I had hesitated to write about "the glare", but I'm glad I did, since you know what I mean.
It sounds paranoid to say it, but if you've had it happen to you, you understand.
It's not paranoid at all. Nobody can understand the anger that some of these individuals express until they experience it first hand. We often hear about widespread cases of intimidation against Westerners in Europe on jihadwatch and other anti-jihad monitors, yet we still find it hard to believe. It's hard to fathom that in the world of today, there are still MANY people around that want you dead simply for existing. I can safely say I have never felt threatened in the United States for simply existing or being present at a certain place, public or private. That incident reminded me of the reality of the world we live in today and also refreshed my memory that half my family was killed off simply for being Jews not that long ago. Since that incident, although hardly related, I've been training on firearms, obtained a permit to own firearms, and have become quite a gun enthusiast.
Total said: I can safely say I have never felt threatened in the United States for simply existing or being present at a certain place, public or private. That incident reminded me of the reality of the world we live in today and also refreshed my memory that half my family was killed off simply for being Jews not that long ago.
I say: You know what's weird Total? I am not Jewish, though I do have a "Jewish-sounding" name, which leads Jews to ask me if I am a member of the Tribe. I always just say, "Only by osmosis," or "Honorary, I hope."
;-)
Anyway, it was as if that guy could see my name, somehow. I mean, why pick me to hate? It could have been because I was a white guy with a brown-skinned wife. It could have been because I was an American, though he must have met Americans all the time, in his line of work. It could have been he saw my Infidel Bloggers Alliance tattoo (Just Kiddin).
I don't know. It was just strange.
I have never felt threatened in the U.S., though I have had some interesting experiences with Islam. I saw a family at Disneyland one time, all dressed normal, except for the mother who was in a full-on Black Burqa in the summer heat. Her eyes met mine when she passed and she had a look of fear in her eyes, like a concentration camp prisoner. That's why I always call burqas Portable Concentration Camps. Because I witnessed it with my own two eyes.
Of course, not all women who wear burqas feel like victims, but this one had the look of a hostage in her eyes.
I could tick off the list of horrific things that have happened to friends of mine. You wouldn't believe all the direct encounters with Islam that my friend have had. However, they were all in other countries.
1) One of my neighbors was kidnapped by Jihadis in Morocco.
2) Another neighbors family were victims of the Armenian Genocide.
3) Another friend of mine is Armenian, and not only was did part of his family fall victim to the Armenian Genocide, but the part that survived fled to "Persia" and were then victims of the Iranians Khomeinist Revolution. Now they are spread out here in LA, and in Paris. They are having to pool money to get their relatives out of Paris.
Stunning.
I don't know why I forgot to mention this, but my father-in-law fought the Jihadis on the Island of Mindanao in the Philippines.
Back in the 90's, when I was still a Leftie, my father-in-law would say what I thought of as "terrible" things about the Muslims.
One day in 2002 he sat down and explained his history. By that time I was ready to listen. I am proud of him now, of course.
If it weren't for the Jihadis in Mindanao, I don't know that I'd have married my wife. My wife's family had a comfy life in the Philippines, except for the friggin' Muslims.
Pasto,
It's quite amazing how much you can learn about a person by looking into their eyes. The thing that irks me the most is that when I repeat the story of being given "the glare", most people think that I'm either crazy or that I misinterpreted those who clearly wished harm on me. The look in their eyes and their facial expressions told me enough about their character as well as their intentions. I had the exact same thoughts as you going through my head about why they possibly could hate me so much aside from being an American. I have blue eyes, don't really have Jewish features, and my girlfriend is a blonde Catholic.
Interesting that we had the same thoughts going through our minds.
You know, the whole "Jenin Massacre" hoax was perpetrated in April of 2002. I was in Paris in June/July of 2002. I went there with the realization that Europe was once again catching fire with anti-Semitism. So, when I saw that PC Holocaust display in the Train Station, it unnerved me. And then, leaving the train station to be picked up by a Muslim giving me that glare, it was very strange. I felt like I was being given a lesson in the history of France.
Here's another story from my trip to Paris. I was on a train to Versailles, and across from me there was a ME-looking dude who looked very cultured. So, I started talking to him and found that he was an Aerospace Engineer, and he was involved in some projects with Americans.
Now, you have to understand that I look like a total Leftie. Across from me, there was another very tough-looking American man and his wife.
When I was talking to the Muslim man, my objective was to get his real opinions on things, so I just adopted the Leftie pose that I know so well, and started questioning him as if I were "against American foreign policy" and against Bush.
What I learned was the guy really did hate America, thought Bush was a cowboy, thought Israel was out of line, etc.
But meanwhile, the tough American was seething at me, an American on French soil "badmouthing" America.
If he only knew what was going through my mind.
The tough American dude motioned to his wife, they got up and huffed away from me.
I don't blame them, but I was on a misssion, and of course, they could not understand that.
My wife was a bit angry at me for that, but I had my reasons. I wanted to understand how French people really thought.
I did a lot of that while I was in France.
I found Parisians generally did not like America, but they didn't seem to hate Americans in general, or at least they liked me (but I look like one of them, though I am bigger than your average Frenchman - funny, I'm like a Alpha Male in France).
But, the French people outside of Paris seem to like America and Americans, or at least that was the sense I got.
By the way, there are no good restaurants in the Trocadero, or if there are, I had the bad luck to miss them all. I was there for two weeks and went to a different restaurant morning, noon, and night, and never once thought any of the food was good. The only decent food I had was in a Franco-Italian restaurant.
It isn't that I don't like French food. It's that I like variety, and there doesn't seem to be any variety in Paris. Everyone serves the same crap.
London is a great city for restaurants, as are San Francisco, NYC, and LA.
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