Good Guy with a Gun #260: Towns County, GA
There's a new lawman on Fodder Creek — and he has a dog. | Original incident: July 18, 2024
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is somewhat updated from the calendar version.
Three days, a drone, two K-9 units, and three state agencies couldn’t run down Bruce Douglas Partin, Jr. A Labradoodle named Odie needed about ten minutes.
Partin, 39, was an inmate on a work detail at the Towns County dump Monday afternoon when he decided the woods looked better than the dump. He walked off into the trees along Highway 288 — and at six-foot-four and still in his orange jumpsuit, he should have been hard to miss.
He had been awaiting court on marijuana distribution, theft, probation violation, and two counts of burglary.
The sheriff’s office sent up a drone, ran the K-9s, and eventually called in the Georgia State Patrol, the GBI, and the Department of Natural Resources. A trail camera caught him wandering Ivy Mountain Road the next day.
By Thursday he was still loose, and the reward for finding him had climbed to $500.
That evening, a resident in the Gander Gap area spotted a man in an orange jumpsuit and called it in.
A couple of hours later and a few doors down, Steven Kirby heard his dog raising Hades at something outside the house. He grabbed a gun and went out to look.
He found himself face to face with the missing trustee. He ordered Partin to the ground, and Partin was wise enough to comply without an argument.
Kirby’s wife, Amy, called 911. Deputies had him back in cuffs by 7:10 that evening.
Partin’s now facing a felony escape charge on top of everything else. I didn’t find any coverage of how the rest of the docket shook out.
Kirby got a public thank-you from the sheriff’s office, a $500 check, and a commendation. They posted to social media with the comment, “There’s a new lawman looking over things up on Fodder Creek, Steven Kirby and his faithful K-9 Labradoodle Odie.” (Garfield could not be reached for comment.)
Not every Good Guy with a Gun has to pull the trigger. Sometimes he just has to stand on the porch and look serious.
Sources
Primary
Here’s the sheriff’s department’s Facebook post.
Local news
AccessWDUN had a good story, but it’s no longer up. The link here goes to an archive.org copy.
FetchYourNews, Atlanta News First, and The Georgia Sun put out escape-day articles.
Fox 5 Atlanta and 95.5 WSB (via WSBTV.com’s staff) also covered the story after the arrest.
2A / specialist media
Sean Holt at USACarry did a great job, as usual.