# Justin Garner, the "Standing Hero" of Carthage



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*SWAT Officer*
with Lt. Dan Marcou

*Justin Garner, the "Standing Hero" of Carthage*

March 29, 2009 is a date to remember in Carthage, North Carolina. It was a warm sunny Sunday. The sky was clear in this Southern town of 2,000 people and the lone on-duty police officer, 25-year-old Justin Garner was observing traffic trickle toward church.
At about 10:00 a.m., the Moore County 911 dispatcher disturbed the Norman Rockwell-like setting with a report, "Shot's fired at 801 Pinehurst Avenue."
Justin, a four and a half year veteran of the Carthage Police Department steered his Dodge Charger patrol car toward the Pine Lake Health and Rehab Center for the elderly. His mind had not wrapped itself as of yet around the possibility that someone might be shooting inside the facility. Calls of this type were usually hunters mistakenly getting too close to town. When he rolled into the lot at the facility he a red Ford Ranger caught his attention. It had the driver's side window shot out and he knew something more serious was in store for him on this call than disoriented hunters.
Suddenly a female came running to the door and exclaimed that there was a man inside and "He is shooting people!" By the frantic look on her face she did not have to add, "This is not a drill."

*"Stay Calm"* 
Justin Garner, who was the only officer on duty in Carthage, entered the rehab center. 
He was met with dead silence. He said, "You could have heard a pin drop." As he moved further into the facility he could see no one near the front door other than an elderly woman in a wheel chair. When he checked on her he could see she had been shot in the chest. "She was gone," Justin recalled quietly moved by the haunting image, 
"I saw there were elderly residents wandering about the facility, who did not have a clue what was happening. I knew that someone was shooting them and could not figure out why anyone would shoot them. They were like children...defenseless. I thought, 'I had to find this guy'," said Justin.
He reached the nurse's station and other than disoriented elderly patients he saw nothing and heard nothing to indicate where the gun man was. He instinctively stepped into one hallway and paused. Then he heard shots and the gunman appeared straight down the hallway he was in.

Full Article: Justin Garner, the "Standing Hero" of Carthage


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