The Crossland ShootoutA Novel by JOHN MYERS
Prologue
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Friday, July 16
To: The Charlotte Star, State Editor Frank Daniels
From: Jay Barton, special correspondent, Crossland, 910-975-7432
Police Kill Gunman, Rescue 2 Hostages
By JAY BARTON
Special Correspondent
LOWLAND -- Just before the bullets started flying early Friday morning, James Parker thought he was dead.
"You're a dead s-- of a b-----" a gunman shouted at Parker after wrenching his AK-47 assault rifle from his hostage's grip and pointing it at him.
(He didn't really say 's-- of a b-----' but this is a family newspaper I'm writing for here, so you have to fill in the -----s.)
But before the gunman could get off a shot at Parker with his illegal fully automatic weapon, Lowland law officers opened fire, killing the gunman and ending an armed robbery that went awry into a hostage-police standoff.
Parker, 27, of Wagram, manager of Tozzi's Pizza at 129 Broad St., Lowland, and another Tozzi's employee, Cathy Short, 22, of Groometown, were held hostage by the gunman but were unharmed.
The gunman, Lemuel T. "Slats" Thomas, 27, of Tim's Mobile Home Park in Groometown, was pronounced dead on the scene after the 1 a.m. Friday shooting, Lowland Police Chief E.W. Marks reported.
Parker, who was slightly injured by a bullet fragment, was back on the job Friday afternoon, shaken but functioning with a bandaged thumb held high as a sign of his glad-to-be-alive spirit.
Parker said the incident began at about 12:45 a.m. Friday as he left the side door of the take-out pizza restaurant unlocked as he passed in and out, preparing to close the store for the evening.
"I saw this guy in a long coat come in the side door and go towards the back of the store, and I knew he didn't belong in here, so I started to yell at him. But something told me not to, so I picked up the phone and dialed 911. But before I could say anything, the guy came out of the back and pulled this wicked-looking rifle out from under his coat and stuck it in my face. I just laid the phone down on the counter and didn't say a thing."
While the gunman was demanding money from Parker, Richland County emergency dispatcher Darrell Farley was wondering what was going on. When Parker dialed 911, the emergency response system displayed the number which was calling on a computer screen.
But when no one spoke as he answered the call, Farley said he waited briefly to see if the computer system would display more information, such as the address of the location making the call.
But the newly installed 911 system had no information entered into it yet to identify Tozzi's, so Farley called the number back.
When the phone rang, Parker said he looked at the handset lying on the counter, then looked at the gunman who had stopped ransacking the place for money and again pointed his gun at him.
"Answer it," the gunman ordered him, so Parker did.
Parker said he punched the blinking light on the phone for the other line, then picked up the handset and said, "Tozzi's Pizza."
Parker said when the dispatcher identified himself, he pretended he was giving him a food order for the next day's supplies. "Yeah. I need two cases of pepperoni, two cases of ..."
Farley said "I caught on that this guy was in trouble, but he seemed to be a pretty cool individual, so I started asking him some questions, the kind that he could answer with a 'yes' or a 'no.'
"I asked him if he was in trouble and he said 'yes.' Then I asked him if there was a holdup going on and he said 'yes' again.
"That was all I needed to know so I told him to hold on, help was on the way. As I switched lines to call for officers to respond, I heard him still going on, 'Two cases of sausage ...'"
Richland County Sheriff's Deputy Max Mabe was on patrol on U.S. 78 two blocks from Tozzi's when he heard the dispatcher's call for an armed robbery, and was the first officer on the scene.
More deputies and Lowland Police arrived in minutes, surrounded the store and called for the gunman to surrender.
Parker said, "When the officers called for him to come out, the guy stuck his gun to my head and grabbed me and Cathy both around the neck. He walked us out the side door like that, shouting at the cops to get away from him or he swore he'd kill us both.
"The cops hollered at him to drop his gun and let us go, but he just hollered back at them and kept pushing us both along.
"He must not have had a car, because he pushed us over to Cathy's car and opened the door and pushed me in. Cathy started struggling with him when he tried to push her in, so I reached out and grabbed his gun by the barrel and tried to pull it away.
"Cathy saw me do that and she dropped down to the ground and rolled under the car. Then he snatched the gun away from me and stepped back and pointed it at me and yelled 'You're a dead s-- of a b-----' and started fumbling with something on the gun.
(Actually, he said "You're a dead s-- of a b-----, you honky mutha f------" but there's only so far you can go, even with dashes, in a family newspaper, and racial cussing is a big no-no.)
"I hunkered down and started praying and then all the shooting started. I thought I was dead for sure. I just knew I was a goner."
As the gunman stepped back from the car and pointed his weapon at Parker, law officers opened fire, but apparently missed him.
"All of a sudden, the guy jumped in the car on top of me, gun and all, and we started fighting for the gun again," Parker said.
"Then somebody snatched my door open and I saw this hand come past my head with a pistol in it, and he jammed the pistol right up against the guy on top of me and pulled the trigger. Bam! Bam! Bam!
"It was so loud my head is still ringing," Parker said.
Those shots apparently killed Thomas, but local law officers would not comment later on Friday as to who fired the fatal shots.
As required by North Carolina law, the fatal shooting is being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation. Frank Ray, SBI district supervisor, said late Friday that three police officers and two sheriff's deputies fired, but he would not identify them.
And Ray said Thomas never fired a shot with his weapon.
Ray said the investigation will take "a few days" before a report is released, but commented, "the facts pretty well speak for themselves on this case. The officers were justified to fire."
Ray also said state and federal officials will assist local officials in investigating the source of the illegal fully automatic weapon Thomas used in the armed robbery/hostage taking.
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Chapter 1
The Story Leading To The Story Behind The Story,
Or, The Shootout Before The Crossland Shootout
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