OT: More on Kimberly Munley, Courageous Police Officer who Put Down Killer Hasan
Magnus
taken out of action by a woman.
If Kimberly Munley doesn't end up with a medal of some kind, somebody
is cheating.
Magnus
The Ft. Hood Hero: Who is Kimberly Munley?
Time.com
By HILARY HYLTON / KILLEEN Hilary Hylton / Killeen – Sun Nov 8, 9:00
am ET
The west side of Killeen, Texas is like countless other places in
America's heartland, freshly carved out of prairie pastures with wide
streets in bucolic neighborhoods like "Sunflower Estates" and
"Bridgewood." But on a glorious cloudless fall day, the flags at the
home sales center nearby are at half mast in honor of the 13 fallen at
Ft. Hood, victims of a gunman whose deadly attack was stopped thanks
to a petite, long-haired blonde mom from the neigborhood.
Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34, a civilian Department of Defense police
officer at the base, is credited with stopping the firing rampage of
U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan at the Soldier Readiness Center within a
few minutes after he launched his attack. The center is a quick five
minute drive from Munley's home, past the new strip centers and the
high school football field along wide Cross Creek Boulevard, but a
world away from the horrors inflicted in one of the worst incidents of
soldier-on-soldier violence in U.S. Army history. (Read TIME's report:
"Stresses at Fort Hood Were Likely Intense for Hasan")
Munley, described by neighbor Brooke Beato, as "very petite, with long
blonde hair and a strong personality," was credited by base officials
with preventing further carnage by aggressively engaging Hasan as he
shot at her. She rounded a corner, took aim at Hasan and brought him
down, officials said. "It was an amazing and an aggressive performance
by this police officer," base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said. It
also was a tactic straight out of recent lessons learned from the 2007
Virginia Tech shooting, when first responders waited for additional
backup before engaging the shooter.
"She walked up and engaged him," said Lt. Gen. Cone told Associated
Press. As a member of the base Special Reaction Team, Munley had
learned that "if you act aggressively to take out a shooter, you will
have less fatalities," Cone said.
Soon after Munley fired at Hasan, taking him down, she herself fell
wounded and police radios quickly sent out an "Officer down" call.
Wounded three times in the arm and leg, Munley is in stable condition
after undergoing surgery Friday to repair damage to an artery. Base
officials said she wishes she could have acted even faster and saved
more lives, and she spent Thursday evening calling friends and
colleagues, expressing those regrets.
While Thursday's shooting sent a shockwave through the tight-knit
Killeen community, Beato, whose husband is an Army captain, said she
was not surprised when Munley's name surfaced as the police officer
who ended the shooting. "It was just like her - she carries herself
with confidence," Beato said.
Beato is a 30-year-old mother of four whose children often play with
Munley's daughters, ages 12 and 3, in the quiet cul-de-sac. "I
couldn't believe what happened, but when I heard what she did," says
Beato of her neighbor, "I believed that because of who she is - I know
her."
Munley, who worked as a police officer for five years in North
Carolina where her father, Dennis Barbour, once served as mayor of
Carolina Beach, is a talented shooter and member of the base's Special
Reaction Team which trains for the possibility of events like
Thursday's shooting rampage. She also is a passionate fan of Twitter
and once news of her actions spread, her followers began to blossom in
number - among them country singer Dierks Bentley who posed for a
photo with the petite police officer at the fort's annual July Fourth
FreedomFest. The photo is posted on her Twitter page along with a
brief biographical quote: "I live a good life...a hard one, but I go
to sleep peacefully at night knowing that I may have made a difference
in someone's life."
publicradiogirl
Great story. As a former female police officer (although not making
it past probation), I'm very proud of her. As a former broadcast
journalism student, I'm appalled by Time.com's report.
from the neigborhood [sic]
"She walked up and engaged him," said Lt. Gen. Cone told Associated
Press [sic]
if you act aggressively to take out a shooter, you will have less
fatalities," Cone said. [hoping that was Cone's grammatical error, but
should then have included the sic in the story]