Retired Police Officer Stops Man Who Fired at Campers with AR-15

New information has been released regarding a 4th of July weekend attempted shooting spree which saw a 29-year-old man shooting at random campers in and around Pike National Forest, at least until an armed retired police officer got in his way.

The incident in question occurred back on July 2nd at around 12:20 in the afternoon when Austin Benson, a 29-year-old man from Colorado stole a car from the 9000 block of Rampart Range Road. Benson then took the vehicle and began a process of attempting to flag down other cars, whereupon the other people would stop near him and Benson would attempt to shoot the good samaritans.

This happened twice with no injuries reported at either location before Benson moved into a nearby campground where he attempted to shoot at 4 separate campers, but still, luckily, did not get a shot on target and no injuries were reported.

Following this leg of Benson’s spree, he was face-to-face with what would be his last potential victim. This man, in recently released reports, was identified as a retired Alabama police officer. This man, along with his wife were camping in Pike National Forest when they overheard the ballyhoo occurring at the nearby camp in which Benson attempted to shoot the 4 people.

At this point, the retired officer pulled out an AR-15 of his and gave his wife one of his handguns, in case the two needed to be called into action. Soon enough the pair were called into action when Austin Benson came up to them and attempted the same coercive schtick that he attempted with others.

But the officer was too clever for this and grabbed his AR-15 from hiding and demanded that Benson drop his gun and get on the ground. At this point, Benson attempted to escape while shooting in the direction of the officer and his wife. Benson continued his streak of not hitting anything, while the officer went through the mag in his AR-15 before pulling out a second, fully loaded AR and continuing to engage, shooting Benson in the arm and face and causing the suspect to crash his car into a tree.

Following that, Benson was taken to a local hospital to handle his injuries and then promptly charged with six counts of attempted first-degree murder as well as one count of attempted aggravated robbery.

As for the retired officer, he will not be charged for his part in the shooting. It is unknown if the incident cut his camping trip short.

So what do you think of this story? Would you have been able to defend yourself like the officer in this story or do you not carry every day? Let us know in the comments below.