Staff Sergeant Shawn Riley saving the world

Chief Tango sends us a link to DVIDS which recounts the story of West Virginia Guardsman Staff Sergeant Shawn Riley as he was driving home from work in August, 2011;

[H]e came upon the scene – a man only in his underwear coming after the deputy with a weed eater and acting erratically. Riley immediately stopped his vehicle, identified himself to [Preston County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas] Mitter as a Soldier, and did not hesitate to help the deputy contain the disturbed man. By the time he got to them, they were in a scuffle on the ground.

A young boy sat in the vehicle the man had been driving before he attacked the deputy. During the dramatic and fierce encounter, the man had fought him, came after him with a weed eater, and reached for his pistol. Mitter had shot him with the taser gun, but it did not faze the man.

“My next option, well, it was to shoot him,” Mitter said. “He had reached for my pistol and would not stop.”

Riley’s intervention helped save Mitter from resulting to that decision and helped him successfully end the attack.

“I helped him control the man and get him to the ground, we made eye contact, and he was able to handcuff him,” Riley said. “When I came upon the scene on my way home, I didn’t really think of anything, I just reacted. I just got back from Iraq a year prior to that, and my military training just kicked in.”

“I don’t doubt that he helped save my life, too. I don’t know how it would have ended,” Mitter said.

SSG Riley, supply sergeant for Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group, earned the Soldiers Medal for his heroism which probably saved two lives that night.

Category: Real Soldiers