Good Guy with a Gun #275: San Mateo, CA
Everyone calls the .22 a plinking round, right up until somebody stops a beating with one. | Original incident: August 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.
There were three weapons in this one. Two of them aren’t things we normally think about as weapons; they belonged to the same man. One of them is often seen as being too underpowered to be an effective weapon, but it did the job.
A little before eight on a Friday morning, a U-Haul box truck drove up to a man at an intersection in San Mateo. They argued, though we don’t know why.
Then the U-Haul driver went back to the truck, came out with a large metal pipe, and hit the man several times in the head and arms.
The man had a .22 pistol, and he used it.
The U-Haul driver, wounded, should have taken the “L.” Instead, he got back in the U-Haul, put it in reverse, and drove at the man — police said he “almost” ran him over. He hit the man’s parked car instead, and left.
He was found later at a hospital down in Palo Alto, stable and expected to live. The man he’d beaten was treated and released.
I unfortunately can’t find anything regarding charges against the U-Haul driver.
Sources
The reporting on this wasn’t the greatest. Little mistakes make me concerned about the whole story, but I think I got the general shape right.
KRON4 had the fullest account: Man shoots U-Haul driver after being attacked with pipe in San Mateo: police. But there are weirdnesses:
They wrote, “After a few minutes, responding officers arrived near the intersection of 19th Avenue and Grant Street and found both the suspect and the victim at the scene.” But at the end of the article, it says, “Police said the suspect…fled the scene. SMPD said the suspect was later located at a Palo Alto hospital and is expected to survive.” To quote Dire Straits, “Two men say they’re Jesus — one of them must be wrong.”
They wrote “Police said the suspect then drove back to the U-Haul…,” but I can only imagine that he walked back to it.
The Bay City News Service also covered the story, and two outlets ran it word for word. I think its opening paragraph is wrong, though: It says “The driver of a U-Haul box truck was shot after he crashed into a man's car and struck him with a large metal pipe during a dispute, San Mateo police said Friday,” but the body copy pretty clearly shows that the U-Haul driver crashed into the victim’s vehicle after the shooting.
San Mateo traffic crash escalates to bludgeoning, gunfire, ramming with truck (CBS News Bay Area)
U-Haul driver shot in San Mateo after crash, attack with pipe (San Mateo Daily Journal)
Ah, the beauties of journalism! Sounds like either quick reporting or a copywriter was out sick that day. :)