Good Guy with a Gun #141: Alamosa, CO (Free post)
“Save big” — he tried. “Live better” — he did not. | March 21, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar — currently on clearance!
If you bought or received a calendar, contact me for a complementary subscription. Today’s post is essentially the same as the calendar version.
Alamosa, Colorado is a town of just under 10,000 permanent residents that sits on the Rio Grande. The total number of people residing there is seasonal, fluctuating with tourist season and the schedule of Adams State University. It’s big enough to have a Walmart, but small enough that it has only one zip code.
I prefer to put my readers into the position of the victims of the crimes being perpetrated, or the shooters if those are different. Seeing it from their perspective helps to explain the good that guns do. This time, though, there’s almost no way to know what that looked like. Here’s the bulk of the Alamosa Police Department report of the incident.
On Thursday, March 21, 2024 at approximately 3:52 p.m. the Alamosa Police Department was dispatched to the area of Walmart for a shoplifter who fled from security. When the shoplifter was near the Fairfield Inn, he pulled out a knife and a bystander shot him once in the leg. The injury appears to be non-life threatening, although the male party is being flown out for further evaluation and treatment.
All parties involved have been contacted and identified for further investigation. The shooter is currently being detained and interviewed by the Alamosa Police Department to determine the circumstances leading up to the shooting. This investigation is in the very early stages and no further information will be released at this time.
(Shoplifters, let’s talk. When security chases you out of the Walmart, take the L. It’s a misdemeanor. Pulling a knife on someone? A felony. Pulling a knife on a bystander in a Walmart parking lot in America? Well, that’s… that’s this story.)
That’s all we know! We don’t know whom he threatened with the knife; it could have been either the bystander or someone else. We can reasonably conclude the shooter was justified — there's no follow-up showing charges were filed.
The Good Guy with a Gun isn’t a myth; he’s just under-documented.
Sources
The Alamosa PD’s report is on Facebook.
No other reports have any additional detail. As often happens with small-town news, the coverage comes from local radio: KYDN 95.3 and 96.5 the Fox (archived link).
The Valley Courier (alamosanews.com) also carried the story.