Cops: El Paso ‘Hero’ Made Up Story

| September 12, 2019

President Trump presents a Certificate of Commendation to Minnie Grant, the mother of Christopher Grant, at a ceremony in the East Room of the White Hous, Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Newser.com and the El Paso Times report that Chris Grant’s story of throwing bottles at the El Paso shooter in order to distract him has been brought into question by the police.

For many people, the day they visited the White House to be honored for heroic actions would be one to remember with pride. It didn’t work out that way for El Paso mass shooting survivor Christopher Grant. The 50-year-old was arrested by Secret Service agents when he arrived with his family to meet President Trump Monday, Time reports. The Secret Service says Grant was detained because there was a warrant out for his arrest, but he was released after it was determined that the agency involved would not extradite him. Grant’s mother collected the certificate from the president on his behalf, but police in El Paso later accused him of lying about his actions during the Aug. 3 attack on a Walmart, in which 22 people died, ABC reports. Grant was shot twice during the attack and spent two days in an induced coma.

Grant told reporters that he was shot after throwing soda bottles at the gunman to distract him, but El Paso police said Wednesday that store security video did not support his story, the El Paso Times reports.

El Paso Police Sgt. Enrique Carrillo, however, said the video tells a different story. “We are not demeaning his reaction which are of basic human instincts but they amount to an act of self-preservation and nothing above that,” Carillo said.

Oh well, it appears he got his 15 minutes of fame.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Media

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Mason

Scumbag. Everyone wants to be a hero until it comes time to sack up and act like one. He’s worse than a coward.

AW1Ed

He’s getting a bit more than 15 minutes, Steve.

El Paso ‘hero’ arrested by Secret Service before meeting Trump at White House: report

A Texas man touted as a hero after last month’s mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, was detained by Secret Service agents upon his arrival at the White House on Monday due to an outstanding criminal warrant, according to a report.

Entire article here: Fox News

5th/77th FA

POS!!! From the Fox Article, his record shows he may have been in the Wally World for reasons other than buying something. Good on the popo and the Secret Service Troops that nabbed his lying embellishing thieving ass. Too bad they had to let him go for lack of extradition. Wonder if Go Fund Me is going to do a refund?

FuzeVT

This has made me wonder something. My first thought was “what is it about the human makeup that would make people crave adulation this badly?” I then thought that it is probably something to do with the advent of the internet and the need to be famous.
Then my mind turned to this. Was there a a big problem with stolen valor prior to advent of the 24 hour news cycle, the internet and social media? We all know there were people lying about their service going back to WWII. We see, occasionally, the stories here about how a family is shocked to find that grandpa lied about his WWII service all his life (normally when someone debunks the obituary). Before the mid-90s, however, you could only lie to your friends and family. Now you can lie to the whole world and the whole world can like your posts and say how grateful they are for your sacrifice.

Bottom line is that I would think it’s more prevalent now because the reward is greater.

Just a thought.

USMC Steve

Stuff like this kinda makes me glad I am antisocial. I really don’t care what everyone else thinks about me.

Wilted Willy

My pos brother was lying about his service way before the internet! He just has a much wider audience now with all the online sources. But also true is he is now more exposed in his lying by the same means that got him famous!!
I still can’t wait until he is exposed and put back in prison where he belongs!!

FuzeVT

“more exposed in his lying by the same means that got him famous”

The internet giveth, the internet taketh away.

SSG Kane

I know I spend a lot of time spinning through the mental gymnastics some of the fakes and frauds that appear here go through to see if maybe I can’t come up with a rational explianation for their behavior that doesn’t center around “attention seeking douchebag whore”. It gets pretty tricky, and sometimes I think I do it just to stretch my brain until it hurts. In this case though, based on my psychology degree, and my honest to God no shit there I was taking fire in Iraq experiences, I honestly believe there is no doubt in his mind that the events unfolded exactly as the story he tells. In most cases, the first time you are in an event like this, your brain is doing some pretty weird things. Its not really recording much, just, survival is paramount. Your brain may or may not shutdown unneeded functions (bladder and sphincter control, tunnel vision, etc). Add to that no one is ever the bad guy in their story, and the brain is piecing things together based on what it was doing in the flight mode and rationalizing why/how something unpleasant happened (in this case the guy was shot twice and spent a couple days in a medically induced coma). His brain, has to figure out what happened and create a coherent story around it. So it does. For whatever reason, his brain latched on to bottles. Maybe they were falling off the shelf as he was shot at. Maybe he knocked them over as he careened his way to apparent safety. Without the video, I don’t know. But his brain tagged that as important. Its trying to figure out how, he got shot. Bottles and getting shot…shit…man I don’t remember cowering or fleeing in fear…so I must have been throwing the bottles at the bad guy and got hit while distracting him… Back to my first TIC, there were five us in an MRAP, that took an IED strike. For all five of us, it was the first time something like this had happened. There were five different stories,… Read more »

FuzeVT

Well said.

STGCS Ret

I think you are right — I believe he believes it and your explanation makes sense. I was never under fire but I have had some near death experiences where things made no sense at all and were not what I believed them to be..What I mean is I thought one thing happened and in all actuality it was totally different.

SSG Kane

Thanks. It got better, so by the third IED strike we knew what was going on and what was really happening.

It also pointed to a huge gap in our training. As Reservists, we focused on keeping our MOS skill current…not training basic and repetitive tasks under stressful conditions.

Our one weekend a month doesn’t allow for us spend hours in a strobing room trying to conduct magazine swaps and call out BOLO’s while babies shriek in the background.

I honestly believe we are not get the physical or cognitive stresses we need to be able to come through a first contact and have any clarity on what really happened. I think the Army calls it fear inoculation. I don’t really like that term, because its not fear as such, its a biochemical dump into the brain that fucks with our neurochemistry.

mr. sharkman

I am (partially, perhaps completely) with you SSG. I was very fortunate that for my first several gun (well, gun +grenade +rocket in a couple of cases, to be honest & accurate) battles, I was surrounded (or at least paired with 😉 ) some very experienced, very cool Cats – who kept my brain from blowing out any seals and/or gaskets, and who provided stone-cold, accurate AARs to counter my (semi-scrambled-brain AAR) own account(s). I don’t know how many of you have ever been in a medically-induced coma (I honestly have no idea – maybe a lot of you have), but in my personal experience + accounts from buddies who were put ‘WAY’ under; 1. I don’t know what exact combination of Drugs they use(d) – I know I asked and I know they answered (probably snickering to themselves due to their knowing the effects on memory), and I completely forgot – but large parts of my short-term memory (and I’ve been diagnosed with possessing a high level (photographic) eidetic memory – look it up, time permitting of course), both before and after events & images, was completely ‘wiped’. I specify events & images for a reason – photographic memories are known for their amazing image retention. If I was wiped, and a mumbling walking carrot after being put way (way 😉 ) under, I have no doubt this guy was too. 2. Strangely, I COULD recall my Brothers-in-Arms talking to me, and there presence when close by, and physiological events; in one case as the docs were preparing to ‘bring me up’, my ticker apparently went berserk and they had to do the full-on 2-paddles CLEAR deal, to bring my ticker out of berserker mode. I recall feeling my heart absolutely pounding, going faster and faster, thinking “Well, looks like this is it, My Old Hummingbird can’t take this much longer”, and then the sensation of my heart pounding immediately disappearing, one of my Bros asking a question (can’t remember what), and my peacefully falling asleep, drifting into darkness. All of this occurred despite my Docs telling my Bros… Read more »

Fyrfighter

Thanks for the post sharkman! From your description of your in-coma dream, and my own experiences administering meds, I’m going to guess that one of the meds used in your case was Ketamine. In EMS, we refer to that as putting someone “in the K hole”. The dreams tend to be very vivid, and usually related to that last thing the pt. heard / saw prior to the meds taking effect. As an example, giving it to a kid for a badly broken arm, just before pushing the meds, we talked about his favorite cartoon… As the meds kicked in, he got this faraway happy look on his face, like he was in the middle of that cartoon… Same thing can happen if the last thing they see / hear is bad, there can be some very bad “trips” from it..
Just my guess, and in that light, what you and others above have said about his brain “grabbing on” to stuff, and writing it’s own story fits perfectly.

A Proud Infidel®™

I never even thought about that and it gives me a new perspective!

mr. sharkman

Thanks for verifying for me (again), that I am not Batsh1t Crazy (every positive verification counts! 😉 ).

Some day, in the Real World, I owe you some shots. 🙂

Fyrfighter

Sounds like a plan, and glad I had something to contribute.

Fyrfighter

Sorry, I forgot to add that even at the doses we give, it has significant retrograde amnesia as one of its effects.. Which can also add to the effects you describe.

Cameron Kingsley

You know something? That’s similar to an expirement concept I have thought of where someone is in a coma while the TV is on and how that would effect their dreams (saw this in the game Driver San Francisco where the main character is put into a coma after a brutual car accident and the TV in his hospital rooom was on the news channel). But I question the wisdom of trying it on myself.

SSG Kane

Thank you for sharing!

I’m glad you came through ok. Combat is a fucked up place (if you’ll pardon the expression) and I can’t imagine going through what you went through.

I was lucky. The worst I had happen to me was a rung bell, some stars, and burned hairs.

I might call MRAPS “Chicken Trucks” with a disparaging tone in my voice, but there’s no doubt I’m only alive because some very clever engineer figured things out and some manufacture’s attention to detail in assembly kept things from going to hell.

A Proud Infidel®™

Cocksucker.

IDC SARC

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

JBUSMC

I’ve never heard of anything like this ever happening before.

JBUSMC

Let’s hope it doesn’t catch on..

cc senor

Well, there is the Rosie Ruiz syndrome.

11B-Mailclerk

Well, I can -kinda- understand when some Schmoe doesn’t want to say “I hid behind the produce display and tried not to shit myself.” But just saying “I didn’t see shit” is literally true, even if they likely miss the meaning.

Inbred Redneck

I ain’t ashamed to admit that on or about 1 May ’68 I was squirmin’ in a muddy rice paddy and realized I was pissin’ myself.
BTW, with that experience I found out the urine seemed to attract leeches, and if’n the crotch is ripped out of your fatigue pants you’ll later have to remove such blood suckers from your scrotum. Seems as though, as a new guy, I didn’t think I knew anybody there well enough to ask ’em for help. :^(
Now, can anybody here help me get rid of the blood suckers in DC?

Anonymous

Shitbird from Beto’s shithole Hell Paso…