By Aaron Earls
Tony Garces had been attending Faith City Mission in Amarillo, Texas, to turn his life around after prison.
But his life almost ended after he wrestled the gun away from a would-be shooter and police mistook him for the perpetrator.
Local police responded to a call just before 9 a.m. on Feb. 14 of a gunman holding around 100 people hostage in the chapel of the outreach center.
Before the police arrived, several people in the building had disarmed the would-be shooter. When officers entered, Garces was holding the gun.
He says the police asked him to throw the gun down, but he was worried it would go off if he did. That’s when police shot him.
Garces was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he had surgery and was later released.
The actual suspect, Joshua Jones, was a regular at Faith City Mission. The center’s head of security noticed Jones leave the chapel service after going through security protocols.
When he followed Jones to investigate, he saw Jones had a gun, so he alerted those in the chapel.
That was when Garces and others were able to secure the gun.
Despite his injuries, Garces says he would do it again “in a heartbeat.”
Those dramatic moments allowed him the opportunity to show the change in his life since leaving prison and starting the drug rehab program at Faith City.
“If it would have been the old me, I wouldn’t have done what I did,” he told ABC 7 in Amarillo. “It would have been completely different.”
Amarillo man accidentally shot by police speaks out about the shooting.https://t.co/hraOCWFlHv pic.twitter.com/YsPb35WNt8
— ABC 7 Amarillo (@ABC7Amarillo) February 22, 2018
AARON EARLS (@WardrobeDoor) is online editor of Facts & Trends.
