Josh Williams was halfway through his three-mile run along Austin’s hike and bike trail on the morning of Sept. 15 when a woman’s screams overpowered the music in his earbuds.

In the predawn darkness, he ran closer to try to find her. He pointed his flashlight in her direction, then realized she was being attacked.

Williams slipped a Glock 43 pistol from a holster he had strapped to his waist. In his first time to ever point the gun at another person, he said he took aim at the man and "I told him him to get off her."

"I told him to get down on his knees, show me his hands, so that I knew he didn’t have a weapon," Williams told the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV in a recent interview. "And at that point, he was no threat, and so I didn’t feel the need to shoot him."

Williams’ intervention led to the arrest of 22-year-old Richard McEachern, which came amid a series of attack on women along the popular trail.

The shooting this week of a gunman in Sutherland Springs by a bystander, which authorities say may have saved lives after an attack on a church, has again drawn national attention to how an armed resident can step in before police arrive and stop crime in progress.

For the full story, visit MyStatesman.com