Highway 59 in Houston, Texas, became the scene of an extraordinary act of courage from an everyday citizen on Saturday, when a normal man saw a police chase turn into a car crash and the car crash turn into a gunfight.
That individual is Mr. John Lally, who was driving along Highway 59 on Saturday and saw a police chase screech down the road. Then, all of the sudden, the dangerous chase turned into a crash, so Mr. Lally pulled over to help any drivers injured by the crash.
He got a lot more than he bargained for by doing so, as that crash suddenly turned into a gunfight, with the individual the police were chasing opening fire on the police officer when the officer approached his vehicle. Describing that sudden change from bad to worse, Mr. Lally said, “As soon as I jump out of the car there’s gunshots going off. Then I looked to my left and saw that cop get shot.”
That is when Mr. Lally jumped into action. After the suspect opened fire and wounded the officer, Mr. Lally ran to the officer and dragged him out of danger, dragging him by the bulletproof vest he was wearing. “That’s when I grabbed that cop by his vest and dragged him all the way back to my work truck,” Mr. Lally said.
Mr. Lally then sat with the wounded officer and made conversation with him as other officers applied emergency aid, applying a tourniquet to the officer’s leg. A tourniquet is twisted tightly to cut off blood flow to a limb, which leads to a risk of amputation but can generally stop the wounded individual from bleeding to death.
According to the police, the wounded officer was Officer J. Gibson. He was chasing the suspect because the vehicle the suspect was driving was stolen, but the driver would not pull over. During the chase, police officers learned that the individual driving the stolen vehicle was also a carjacking suspect.
That individual refused to pull over and the chase turned into a multi-car crash, which is when Mr. Lally got involved, After the crash stopped the suspect, Officer Gibson approached the suspect’s car and made demands to the suspect inside, but instead of following them, police say, the suspect opened fire on Officer Gibson and hit him in the leg.
After Mr. Lally rescued the officer by dragging him to safety, other officers continued to deal with the suspect, who got in another car and tried to get away, but was hemmed in. He then attempted to get into a second car and get away, at which point five officers opened fire on him, hitting him multiple times. The suspect died in the hospital.
Lally, commenting on the generally sad nature of the whole incident, particularly for those multiple people who were injured, said, “It sucks that people got injured and even the man who caused the whole thing lost his life, but I think a higher power knows what they’re doing.”
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