Good Guy with a Gun #217: Los Angeles, CA
“If it’s considered a heroic act, well, I appreciate it.” — Turan Sanders, Uber driver, Good Guy with a Gun. | Original incident: June 2, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is essentially the same as the calendar version.
We don’t often get the good guy’s name, so let’s give a cheer for Turan Sanders, who stopped a naked 20-year-old man from beating a 60-year-old woman.
Sanders is an Uber driver. He was dropping off a passenger at around 8 PM on a Sunday. “As soon as we pulled up,” he said, “we saw a guy stripping. Like, butt naked. So I kind of backed up the car and said, hold on, what’s going on here?”
Seems reasonable enough.
He continued, “When the guy started charging at the woman, he started violently hitting her — haymakers, knees to her head, he was slamming her head on the ground…”
I encourage you to listen to the interview. He has the voice of a man who knew what he had to do and was resolute about doing it.
Sanders yelled and even fired a warning shot. (Sanders is awesome, but don’t do that.) Eventually the man’s attention turned away from the woman toward Sanders. The man rushed the car and beat on it, climbing onto the windshield, trying to get inside.
A neighbor heard Sanders repeatedly telling the man to get off his car, but eventually he fired at him, hitting him in the neck.
Uber suspended Sanders pending an investigation — according to policy, their drivers aren’t supposed to carry. Feel free to appropriately and legally express your opinion about their policy to them, say, on X.
The woman was treated at the scene and released.
The man went to the hospital. No motive was known at the time.
Sanders passed off his act as something he just had to do. “If it’s considered a heroic act, well, I appreciate it.”
The American Society of Shrieking Harridans Against Toxic Masculinity could not be reached for comment.
Sources
Primary
Orange County Sheriff’s Department on Facebook and the county website.
Local news
KTLA 5 did solid work on this, as shown in the video linked above and on their write-up. They also covered it as the story was still unfolding, which you can see here.
NBC LA’s coverage was similar, with an interview and a little bit of community reaction. Watch below or go to the page. They also included this story in A look back at some of the most bizarre stories of 2024.
ABC 7 got some good witness information / community reaction.
Fox 11 got strong reactions with their headline, OC Uber driver who shot suspect allegedly assaulting woman could face charges, but I don’t see any evidence that he was charged. I think the police may just have been using “their language,” knowing that the charging decision wasn’t theirs but the DA’s.
WKRC 12, the LA Times, the Orange County Register, the Sacramento Bee, and Patch all got in on the coverage, though without much differentiation that I can see.
And they’re not local, but People reported on this incident, too.
2A / specialist coverage
John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) included this story in a roundup called, “UPDATED: Good Samaritans: People legally carrying guns have protected others”.
Brandon Curtis covered it at Concealed Nation, and Sean Holt covered it at USACarry.
Ammoland posted about it.
Honestly, there are probably more. Let me know and I’ll add them.
And meanwhile, there’s Smoketales. He’s got his.