A rookie Oklahoma City police officer became separated from his partner during a foot pursuit and managed to close in on the robbery suspect they were chasing. The suspect managed to get control of the officer’s baton and started striking him in the head repeatedly, and the incident might have become another murder of an officer in the line of duty if it wasn’t for an armed citizen stepping in to save the day:

It happened just after 2 p.m. Tuesday in the 2800 block of W. Park Pl. Rookie Officer Adam Eller and field training officer Sgt. Michael Lambert were responding to the burglary call. The two suspects in the burglary, Tremaine and Jermaine Williams, are twin brothers. Police say Tremaine was already gone when they arrived, but Jermaine was there and when he saw the officers he took off on foot. During the chase the two officers became separated. Eller found himself alone when he caught up to Jermaine in a driveway of a nearby home and as he tried to place him under arrest, a fight ensued. During the struggle, Jermaine was able to take Eller’s police baton and then proceeded to strike him over the head somewhere between six and 12 times. According to a report, that’s when a witness nearby charged up with his weapon drawn and told Jermaine he would shoot him if he did not stop hitting Eller. That heroic witness has not been identified.

Officer Eller was transported to a nearby hospital with serious injuries, but was released the next day.

It is unknown at this time why Eller didn’t draw his service weapon and fire on Jermaine Williams. He may be been incapacitated, but the story does not say.

Fortunately an armed citizen was able to stop Williams’ attack on Officer Eller, and other officers responding to the scene did not mistake the armed citizen as a threat to Officer Eller.

We seem to be having more and more instances of “good guys with guns” stepping up to stop attacks on citizens and police officers. We’re not entirely sure if there are more armed citizen interventions, or if the media is just starting to do a better job of covering these stories.

In any event, these stories—which we seem to be reporting several times a week recently—are proving that armed citizens are an important part of maintaining a civil society.