One man is dead and two more were injured after a fire chief stopped to help a driver who hit a deer Sunday evening. Coweta County Fire Rescue battalion chief James Bartholomew Cauthen was driving near Stroud, Alabama when he saw a motorist who needed help. The two men then tried to go to a nearby property for help when the homeowner started shooting at them. Cauthen was killed in the ensuing gunfight the New York Times reports.
William Randall Franklin reportedly opened fire on the two men coming onto his property for help. Both Cauthen and the driver, who has not been named, were also armed and returned fire. All three men were hit by gunfire at some point, leaving Cauthen dead and sending both Franklin and the driver to the hospital for treatment. Local authorities told the New York Times that Franklin has since been arrested and charged with murder.
Law enforcement found the men while responding to call about a car that had hit a deer. As Mike Parrish, chief deputy of the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office:
They start walking up a driveway and an individual that lived in the residence where this driveway was came out and started shooting. You pull up and three people are shot — it just don’t make sense any way you look at it,” he told the station. “We just really didn’t know what happened. It was just bizarre.
It’s possible that more will come out as law enforcement investigates the case, but at least for now, it sounds like two men were literally just trying to get some help after a wreck. It wasn’t even late. Unfortunately for them, some guy just had to live out his Red Dawn fantasy, and now one man is dead, and another was sent to the hospital. And for what? It’s just senseless violence for the sake of violence.
Cars break down. People have wrecks. Sometimes they run out of gas. Personally, I think we should live in a society where you can safely ask for help when something like that happens without having to worry about getting murdered. Maybe that makes me a leftist SJW feminazi, but what can I say? I want the freedom to enjoy life without getting shot.
At least Franklin was charged with murder, though. That doesn’t always happen, especially in small-town Alabama. Then again, if he’d killed someone other than a fire chief, he may have gotten off scot-free.