At a press conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, homeowner Patrick Hale (shown on right) gave all credit to Jesus Christ for the anti-climatic capture of two escaped convicts that occurred on his driveway last week. Though there were a dozen microphones lined up to hear his story, few, if any, were from the mainstream media. Said Hale:
I realized I had two ex-cons wanted for murder who had just shot at [local] law enforcement who had nothing to lose and, for some reason, they surrendered and laid down on the concrete on my concrete driveway.
If that doesn’t make you believe in Jesus Christ, I don’t know what does.
Covering the story apparently was anathema to the mainstream media as it violated at least three of its criteria (agenda) for coverage: 1) The homeowner was exercising his Second Amendment rights by having loaded firearms on his person, in his car, and in his home; 2) he witnessed a seemingly miraculous event; and 3) he gave all credit for that miracle to Jesus Christ. To the MSM, this story didn’t happen.
But it did. On Thursday night Hale was at home when he received two phone calls from neighbors alerting him to the possibility that two escaped convicts were headed his way. When he looked out the back window, he saw two men about 300 yards away, climbing over his barbed-wire fence and moving toward his house. He called 911.
The two, Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose, had escaped from a Georgia prison earlier in the week during a prison transfer, overpowering two guards, taking their firearms from them, and shooting them in cold blood. The two then attempted to escape, rampaging through an area spanning 250 miles and involving several stolen vehicles and one elderly couple being held hostage. When the vehicle they stole from them crashed following a high-speed chase by local law-enforcement officers, the two ran off toward Hale’s home.
But Hale knew nothing of this. All he saw were two men headed his way and he was forced to make a decision: hide himself and his three-year-old daughter in his home’s “panic room,” or flee. Initially he decided to stay, and so he checked to make sure that every firearm in his house was loaded. Said Hale: “I loaded every weapon I could in my house to be prepared in the event they needed to be used.”
And he prayed: “I prayed like I had never prayed.”
As the two escapees drew closer, Hale changed his mind and decided to flee. He grabbed his daughter, jumped into his vehicle, and started backing out of his driveway when the seeming miracle happened:
We got in the car and backed up quick only to find the gentlemen (sic) had been running and got much closer to my house. They began to take off their shirts and wave them at us as if to slow us down.
I began to slowly back up as they came closer. At that point, I realized I had two ex-cons wanted for murder who just shot at law enforcement and had nothing to lose. And for some reason, they started to surrender and lay down on their stomachs on my concrete driveway.
If that doesn’t make you believe in Jesus Christ, I don’t know what will.
Within three minutes, some 45 local law-enforcement officials arrived on the scene, handcuffed the two lying on the driveway, and took them away.
Hale called the press conference on Friday to explain exactly what happened and to emphasize that he was no hero:
Hearing that you’re a hero for just simply calling 911 and explaining what happened, and just back up even though we did have guns with us, we never had to use them and that to me is more [of] a God thing.
Hale also didn’t know anything about the $160,000 reward being offered for the arrest of the two convicts.
The only member of the MSM who ventured into the incident tried to put a spin on it. Nate Rau, writing for the Nashville Tennessean, had his story picked up by USA Today. Wrote Rau, the incident “has rekindled rallying cries about the value of gun ownership” with “Second Amendment advocates seiz[ing] on the incident as an example of why responsible gun ownership is important.”
Realizing that there was nothing in the story to support his anti-gun agenda, Rau claimed the following:
Even if a homeowner does not shoot, brandishing a firearm to defend your property is murky legal territory, experts said.
Of course Hale never brandished anything, but that would have left Rau with nothing. So he enlisted the help of a Nashville criminal defense attorney to explore the non-existent “brandishing” that Hale never did:
Nashville criminal defense attorney Ben Raybin said the key question is whether a person has a “reasonable perception” that they are in danger.
Raybin expounded on the firearm brandishing event that never happened:
You absolutely have a right to self-defense in Tennessee to use a reasonable amount of force to defend yourself from a reasonable fear of bodily harm. Just because someone is on your property does not create a reasonable belief that you are in danger.
So, in this case, [Hale was] certainly wise to not actually shoot the people because he probably correctly perceived it was not necessary to actually fire. But from what I’ve seen [Hale] would have been in a situation to think that at least it was necessary to display his firearm.
In retrospect, it’s likely that Rau should have left the story alone rather than attempt to twist and spin it to fit his anti-gun agenda. And USA Today would also have been wise not to reprint the story, recognizing, instead, that it wouldn’t have furthered its own anti-gun agenda.
After all, the incident possessed three issues that are anathema to it and the other members of the MSM. An innocent homeowner used his Second Amendment rights to arm himself against potential lethal threats from criminals who had just committed murders. He witnessed a miracle during which he didn’t need to use, or draw, or “brandish” a firearm. And he gave credit for that miracle to His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s no wonder the media is silent. For it, this story never happened.
Image of Patrick Hale: Screenshot of a YouTube video by Wochit News
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
