Good Guy with a Gun #268: Wauwatosa, WI

A gun might not keep you from getting injured, but fighting back might be worth it on its own. Your call. | Original incident: July 26, 2024

These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is somewhat updated from the calendar version.

Jeremy Dill, 39 at the time of this incident, was a father of four; his youngest was just about to start elementary school. He was between fares — he drove for Uber — when he pulled into the gas station at Currie Park Auto Repair in Wauwatosa early on a Friday and started filling up.

Five people pulled up on him at the pump. At least one had a gun. They wanted his car. Five against one, three in the morning: None of those are good numbers.

Dill was carrying, too. He drew, and the two sides traded gunfire before the group piled back into their own car and fled.

A Wauwatosa officer who’d heard the shots caught up with them within minutes. The chase ended when they clipped a street sign, and several of them ran for it on foot.

Police picked up one that night — an 18-year-old from Milwaukee — and confirmed the car he’d been riding in had been reported stolen two days earlier. The other four got away, and I can’t find a record of whether they were ever caught. It’s remarkable to me that nobody reported on the 18-year-old being charged.

Dill took a bullet to the torso, per a friend’s account. It took two surgeries, a ventilator, a stretch in the surgical ICU before he could sit up on his own again.

His friends call him the kind of guy who’d give you the shirt off his back. One of them, Michael Morgan, put the alternative plainly:

“I also think about what may have happened if he wasn’t able to defend himself to the extent that he was. Maybe we’re having a different conversation. Maybe we’re planning a funeral.”

Sources

Primary

The fullest firsthand account of what he’s facing — two surgeries, months of lost work, a family staring down medical bills — comes straight from his own fundraiser. Help Jeremy Dill Heal After A Tragic Carjacking attempt (GoFundMe)

News

FOX6 had the first solid police account, crash location and all. Wauwatosa attempted armed robbery, shooting; man in serious condition (FOX6)

CBS58 covered the same ground and added two on-scene neighbor quotes. Armed robbery attempt ends with gunfire exchange in Wauwatosa, 1 person in serious condition (CBS58)

The Journal Sentinel’s version is paywalled at the source; read here via Yahoo’s syndicated copy. Man, 39, injured in Wauwatosa gas station shootout and attempted robbery, police say (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

TMJ4 got the family on camera less than a week later — friend Roman Martinez, mother Sheryl Kettler. ‘He is a fighter’ man shot during attempted carjacking expected to recover fully (TMJ4)

WISN’s follow-up brought a second friend, Michael Morgan, and the hardest quote of the bunch. Wauwatosa man seriously injured in gas station shooting and attempted carjacking (WISN)

2A / Specialist

Armed Citizen Stops Carjacking: Intense Shootout At Gas Station (Concealed Nation)