Firearm injuries resulting from violence
In this section, participants discuss firearm injuries that were sustained during an altercation or other act of violence. Veterans we spoke to described being the target of a planned attack; the victim of a random assault by an unknown assailant, such as during a robbery; a witness to or participant in a confrontation that escalated; and intervening in a situation in which they were trying to help another person escape injury. Regardless of how their injury occurred, the experience of victimization has had many lasting impacts.
Getting shot by someone they knew
Veterans described their stories of being victimized as a result of a planned violent attack. For these Veterans, their relationship with the perpetrator had already started to deteriorate. In these cases, the compounding impact of being shot by someone they once trusted was an added injury.
Erin was the victim of an attempted murder-suicide by her estranged husband.
Erin was the victim of an attempted murder-suicide by her estranged husband.
I met my ex-husband while we were both deployed. He was an EOD tech, so Hurt Locker guy. That's what he did. So, yes, we met over there. And we came home in September. He got deployed again in January or February. And we were engaged before he left. We didn't really know each other in the real-world situation, really, in any way.
And after he got back, he decided to get out of the Marine Corps. And it was a complete shift. He hadn't ever functioned in civilian life. He joined when he was 18 years old. And he went to go on to be a police officer. So, it was, it was big, major shifts for him.
And I think he, I think had he stayed in the Marine Corps, it might have worked out differently for him. I think he needed the structure, and he needed the adrenaline of getting deployed and disarming bombs. The civilian life was, it just really wasn't for him.
It was September 24, 2011. I was a victim in attempted murder-suicide. It was my ex-husband; we were both Marines. There was a lot of escalating behaviors that led up to that point. But most importantly, so essentially, around two o'clock in the morning, he shot me twice, and then he killed himself. And luckily, my mom was down visiting, and she was able to help stabilize me until the paramedics came.
But as a result, I have a spinal cord injury, so T2 complete. And there were a lot of other initial injuries. One bullet went in my carotid artery, and then that pierced, collapsed my lung. And then it hit a vertebra that went into my spinal cord that caused the spinal cord injury. And then the second bullet went in through my mouth and out through my jaw. So, I was a hot mess. My face looked crazy; I was missing a bunch of teeth. And I was paralyzed. So, it was a huge, huge shift in my life.
As his relationship with his fiancé was falling apart, Darrell was the victim of a targeted attack.
As his relationship with his fiancé was falling apart, Darrell was the victim of a targeted attack.
I met a girl who had three young kids. I was divorced at the time. I have three kids. Two of them lived with their mother. One of them lived with me. She had three little ones: a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old. And we were together for nine years. And we were supposed to get married.
And she opened up a little store down the street from where we lived. A little convenience store. I basically call it a little beer store with potato chips, and Cokes, and mainly beer. I don’t really drink or anything like that. But she had that and had it for a couple of years. And she made friends with this woman. And they become very close. And I knew her, and her husband, and her kids. I wasn’t as apt to just want to hang out and drink by the bonfire all the time because that’s just not my thing. Well, make a long story short, my girlfriend started having an affair with her friend and her husband, unbeknownst to me. I didn’t know this for the longest of time. And then I found out. I tried to save my relationship, tried to do everything I could. The woman that she was having an affair with, she left her husband. And those two got together.
I helped her when all this happened. And then I was helping her pay her light bills and some of her bills because I didn’t know what was going to happen between us. And then I just decided to put my foot down and say, “I’m not doing it anymore. I’m having your lights cut off at the end of the month. You’re about to take care of that yourself because I’m not going to be putting out the bill for you anymore.” So, I had driven to town. And I knew that they had cut the power off that day because they ere backed up to her house and they were taking everything out. And I didn’t give it a second thought. I just went home, and I went to bed.
About three o’clock in the morning there was a loud knock on my door, somebody beating on my door. So, I got up, walked to the front door. I opened up the front door and I reached with my hand to open up my screen door and I got shot. It went through my hand and into my stomach. And I didn’t see who’d done it. I mean I looked – I mean they went through so much crud. They had undone my porch lights. It was dark outside. I lived on a farm. I lived off the street. And they shot me. And then I just ran into the house. And I called my uncle who lived next door. He didn’t answer my phone. And so, I called 911. They came out. My ex-girlfriend did not shoot me. However, I believe that she had some – if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have gotten shot. And I think it had something to do with her newly found girlfriend or whatever – somebody that may know or whatever. But it’s never been solved, so to speak. There were a few words that were issued to me when I got shot. So, hopefully one of these years somebody will come up. And if they say this phrase of words, then I’ll know.
Kodak recalls how his mother conspired to shoot him.
Kodak recalls how his mother conspired to shoot him.
I ended up having to stay with my mother after I was arrested by the federal government and was sentenced to thirty years in federal prison. I fought like hell to get out in sixty-one months. In that time, I was sexually assaulted. I came home; the VA diagnosed me with PTSD and gave me a rating.
She claimed to be scared of me and it was nothing more than me telling her she’s not getting my money. I had to give her the little rent or buy groceries with food stamps that I was getting.
So, I started going to the VA and getting help with my federal PO, who was a veteran out of the same war. He would tell my mother he understood; his mother was the same way. And she’d come up with every story to get me out of the house. And the police finally told her, “He will end up having you evicted if you went that far because he doesn’t do anything.”
So, her and my brother plotted one day, and I will wake up in the wee hours of the night about 2:00, and she is known to conspire. And so, I heard her. I stayed right across from her room; I heard her on the phone with my oldest brother who lives next door. And she said - she was talking about shooting him below the waist if he has a problem with me telling him to get out.
By the time I got down the hallway, all the stuff had transpired to what she was concocting; a situation, and she said, “I want you out of my house,” this and that. I just had made tons of groceries, amongst other things, paid the bills, and she just was jealous that I wouldn’t give her extra money. So, when I walked to get the rest of my stuff to put in the car, she shot me in my lower left leg.
Random violence
Some Veterans were injured during the course of a robbery or other “random” incident in which they did not know the perpetrator. Veterans described being “surprised” by these attacks or that it was difficult to make sense of the situation as it was unfolding. As a result, their experiences have profoundly impacted their sense of safety.
Joe sustained a firearm injury as the victim of a robbery, and again, years later, in a drive-by shooting.
Joe sustained a firearm injury as the victim of a robbery, and again, years later, in a drive-by shooting.
Came home [after being deployed] and I had a lot of friends in there that didn't make it home. I came home and I got shot. That was the crazy part. The first time it was somebody trying to rob me, and I grabbed the weapon and took the weapon from him but during that process I got shot through the hand. Honestly, I was more surprised than anything. It made me upset, not emotional at all. Almost like, somebody has to pay for what happened to me. It made me think a little bit differently. Opened my mind that it can happen to you. I felt a little bit, I was just like, “man I went through the service. I came home and this happens to me? I went through all this there and I came home and this happened?”
A couple years later, this is four or five years after I got in the Corps, second time I got shot, I got shot five times. I got a bullet in my back, by my spine. And it bothers me pretty much every day. I wake up every day and my back hurts. It’s too close to my spine so they don’t want to remove it. I was helping my friend move and sitting on the porch and somebody came. The area that I’m from, that I live in, I try to move outside of it but it’s bad everywhere. Stuff happens everywhere, just higher in certain areas I believe. But the world is a crazy place. But I was helping a friend move and someone walked up and shot the house up. I got shot five times. I pushed my friend’s wife through the door with the kid. I got shot five times. So, that was kind of traumatizing for real.
Charles recalls being caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting while he was “just minding my own business.”
Charles recalls being caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting while he was “just minding my own business.”
I was just outside and the next thing I knew there was shots across the street close to the yard I was in. I wasn’t really watching them, but I could hear them already cussing. I didn’t know there was a rivalry. They just started shooting. They didn’t care who was there. The next thing I knew, bullets are flying, and I got bullets passing by my head. I’m like, “oh, Lord.” And I got down behind a vehicle, laid down on my stomach. I was hit in the bottom of my feet. Nobody was hurt except me. I had somebody call an ambulance.
Argument or confrontation
Veterans described being involved in an argument or confrontation that escalated to the point where a firearm was used. Veterans spoke about how their choices during and after the incident have profoundly affected their lives. Mickie reflected that by carrying a firearm, “I’ve gotten myself in more trouble with it than without it.”
Jeff saw his father shot and killed in an altercation with a family friend.
Jeff saw his father shot and killed in an altercation with a family friend.
So, I got out of the Army in ’92. I was only out a few months. And that’s when we were up here in the country and a family friend and my father got in an argument and ended up, he shot him. And probably because of my, I don’t know, PTSD, whatever, I was just shocked, didn’t know what to do. So, then in the end of that, police arrested him, put him on a polygraph, and asked him who shot Jeff’s dad, and he confessed to it then. There was zero physical evidence and he ended up getting acquitted at trial.
Then, because I wouldn’t. The police wanted me to testify against him and my brother. I told them, “He did it. I am not testifying against my brother.” So, then I ended up being convicted of accessory after the fact to second degree murder because I refused to cooperate with police. And so, I ended up, like I already had PTSD from Desert Storm. Witnessing that and then going through the trial process, and again, no physical evidence, credibility contest, and the only real thing was that tape of him confessing. But the big thing was, “he just doesn’t act right, like how is someone supposed to react when they witness that.” And it was, yeah, I was just so far down mentally from the PTSD and then witnessing that afterwards, I just, I couldn’t even make the decisions to act right on how to cooperate with police and even in my own defense in trial. So, I ended up going to prison.
I had the PTSD already from the Army. And then witnessing that, I didn’t act the way everyone thought I should or even me thinking back about the way I should have acted. I would like to think if I had a legal firearm, I would have had enough sense to pull it and hopefully prevent it from occurring or subduing him afterwards. And that would have changed the entire future. At the same time with my mental state, would I have still frozen and done nothing?
Mickie talks about being shot when, during an altercation, he and the other person “started struggling for the firearm.”
Mickie talks about being shot when, during an altercation, he and the other person “started struggling for the firearm.”
Being in the service, I do know how to properly store it and how to handle a firearm, but I’ve had three different incidents with firearms. And my early incident with a firearm is the last one where I ended up getting shot where me and a guy ended up getting into it and we started struggling for the firearm. And I was able to get the magazine out and we fell on the ground, wrestling around a little bit. And then, I know the magazine was out, but he was about to get it from me and so, I ended up pulling the trigger. And it happened he was pointing at my leg so, I ended up getting shot in the leg and ended up doing like, I think, seventy-five days in jail. Cost me probably about $15,000 in fines and jail time. And I walked around for about a week with the bullet wound, maybe two weeks or something, before I went and got any help for it. And the gunshot wound, I think I probably still have a problem with it because of how it hit this leg, and I have neuropathy in that leg. So, I think that contributes to probably the downfall of, you know, I have weakness in my one leg – my left leg.
Injured while trying to help another
Two Veterans shared stories of how they were injured when they intervened on behalf of someone who was in danger. In both cases, the participant knew the perpetrator was dangerous before the situation occurred but made the decision to step in regardless of the risk.
Anthony describes his involvement in an incident at work where his co-worker’s boyfriend showed up with a gun.
Anthony describes his involvement in an incident at work where his co-worker’s boyfriend showed up with a gun.
I work construction out of the Marine Corps. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and bipolar in 2001, so I don't know, I just didn't, didn't mess with firearms that much. And then, I had back surgery in 2005 and again in 2015 and thought it was a good idea to get out of physical labor, so after my back surgery and I healed up I went and started as a security manager for a casino.
And it was, I believe it was October 6th of 2016, I was- it was a, I believe it was a Tuesday and I wasn't supposed to be there, it was my day off, but they were short-handed so I came in, worked a three to eleven shift. And the couple nights prior there was a security officer that, her boyfriend had beat the crap out of her and she was scared to go to her vehicle that night, so I walked her back, and I told her, I said, “You need to call the police. He's going to do something worse than…” I said, “If he can do this to your face and body then he ain't afraid to kill you.” So, a couple nights later, it was like 10, 15 minutes before I was supposed to get off work and we had banned this gentleman from the property because we're afraid he's gonna come in and do something in the casino.
So, I was sitting in the office doing my pass on notes for the next shift and when another security supervisor came in and said, he's out there, and I go, “what do you mean?” It would have been the security officer's boyfriend. So, I ran outside, and the security officer happened to be sitting with a slot technician that she was friends with, and they were walking up to the building and this gentleman had come behind them and was, I don't know. He had a Glock 40 in his right hand, and he had a .380 in his left. So, I went out there, I went out there and I told him, “You need to leave the property.” And he came toward me, he came at me with his left hand and that's what he had the Glock 40 in, so I got control of that, knocked it out of his hand, got one handcuff on him and then I did not know he had the .380 in his right. And he came up and shot once and it went in between my legs, up through my coat jacket and then the other one hit me in the right leg towards the hip area to the femoral bone and it ricocheted off that. Came out my, came out my, well, out my groin and then into, I don't know, just under my scrotum sack and sat there.
When we were having that scuffle, and everything, there's a bunch of employees out there, so they were able to get into a secured door where you needed a badge to get in. So, he ran up there trying to get in the door and couldn't get in and by that time I was bleeding pretty bad and I was just laying on the ground and then he come back to me, stood over me, and I just looked at him and I said, “Go easy on me man.” And he discharged the clip out of the .380, sat it on the ground and ran off.
While protecting his friend from a violent neighbor, Daniel was shot multiple times.
While protecting his friend from a violent neighbor, Daniel was shot multiple times.
I was injured protecting a friend of mine from a really violent person who had his firearm at an apartment complex where we lived, threatening people, even kids. You know, the guy was just horrendous, and everybody complained about him, but you know, they never did anything until it was too late. So, I actually was shot six times trying to rescue a friend from a heated argument with this guy. And the guy threw up on himself when I was trying to help my friend get away. He shot me in the stomach once, and he shot me in the chest, and again in the scapula, in the humerus and severed my humerus completely. So, I winded up going to the hospital in pretty bad condition, but somehow, I pulled through.