Good Guy with a Gun #235: Franklin, VA
A mentally ill neighbor chased two children with a knife. Terrel Majette had a gun and kept his composure. No shots fired, nobody was harmed. | Original incident: June 19, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
Terrel Majette was on his porch at about 6 PM, talking to his brother, when two children ran toward him.
He knew them from the neighborhood; in fact, the little girl had come up to his porch just a little while before, asking if two of his children could come out to play. No, unfortunately — they were grounded for not doing their chores, so they were stuck inside. Though maybe that was fortunate after all.
The kids weren’t there to play: A man who lived nearby had been chasing them with a knife.
The boy ran into his own house. Majette told the girl she should get into her house, but then realized she couldn’t: She lived next-door to the man and would have to get around him to go home.
Majette’s wife got the girl inside and called 911. Majette’s brother had no weapon, so he got into his car and locked the doors. Majette got his 9mm.
His doorbell camera recorded him calmly telling the man to stay off his property. The man complied, but he made strange comments. Eventually — no shots fired — the man went back to his house.
The police arrived, first stopping at Majette’s house and then going to pick up the man and take him to a hospital. The man was “known to police,” as they say, suggesting that this wasn’t his first mental health episode.
Majette was sympathetic to the man. He suffered from PTSD himself, both as an Army veteran and from being robbed at gunpoint in Atlanta in 2019. “The last thing I wanted to do was harm him or see him harm any of these kids,” he told WAVY 10. “I’m just glad I was able to maintain my composure and de-escalate the situation.”
He wondered whether he would have been able to keep his composure if his own children had been the ones at risk. Maybe it’s a bit of divine providence that they were grounded.
Nobody was harmed during the incident.
Sources
Primary
Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms spoke to Majette a week or two after the incident, and you should really just listen to him talk. The interview starts at 9:40 into the video clip at this link (which is unfortunately not embeddable).
You can also hear Majette speak in an interview with WAVY 10. This is a much shorter clip, but it’s still enough to get his side of the story. The video at this link also shows the doorbell camera footage from Majette’s house and another one, which is the source of the still image above.
2A / specialist media
Sean Holt covered this incident at USACarry.
I like those kinds of endings. Hopefully this man will get the help he really needs before he does hurt someone.