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Unorganized militiaman helped subdue LAX gunman
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
'A lot of screaming'
Beaumont doctor helps subdue gunman
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
A Beaumont man headed to the Philippines on vacation helped tackle and disarm a gunman who killed two people at the Los Angeles airport late Thursday morning.
Associated Press /
Los Angeles Times / Paul Parkus
With travelers crouching in the foreground, security officials stand over the body of the gunman who opened fire at Israel's El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles Inter-
national Airport Thursday.
David Parkus, 39, a trauma surgeon at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont, said he saw the man suddenly open fire with a pistol on people in line at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al Airlines.
"He got off about four or five shots," Parkus said. "Everybody hit the ground."
Parkus, in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, said he was standing in line at the Singapore Airlines ticket counter about 30 feet from the gunman, who was about 6 feet tall and 225 pounds and was wearing a blue blazer, slacks and a red tie.
'A lot of screaming' Beaumont doctor helped subdue gunman
Parkus' girlfriend, Pati Cure, a nurse from Beaumont, and his brother Paul Parkus and sister-in-law Milli Parkus, both of Los Angeles, were with him. They were headed to the Philippines for a long-planned vacation.
David Parkus said he was looking at the El Al ticket line when the shooting started.
"All of a sudden I see this guy start shooting," he said.
He said he initially threw himself to the floor, but then he looked up and saw an El Al security guard wrestling with the gunman.
"The security guard was smaller than the gunman and was having trouble with him so I ran over to help him out," Parkus said.
Another security guard shot and leaped on the gunman, Parkus said. Parkus said he grabbed the gunman's legs and helped hold him down. He kicked a knife out of the man's hand after the man had stabbed the guards several times.
Then, Parkus said, he felt the man die as he held him. The man had been shot at least three times, he said.
One security guard had been stabbed slightly in the back and the other stabbed lightly in the leg, Parkus said.
Parkus, who was not hurt, said he told the guards he was a doctor, but they told him they didn't need his help with the gunman anymore.
Parkus said he briefly examined the wounded bystanders. One man appeared near death after a bullet had entered his buttocks and come out his chest.
Cure and Parkus performed CPR on another victim, and he helped a third who had been shot in the leg.
Paul Parkus said he was not shocked that his brother had acted so quickly. He said that when he heard the shots, he grabbed his wife and his brother's girlfriend, pushed them to the floor and covered them with his body.
He said one of the women looked up moments later and saw David Parkus grappling with the shooter.
"There was a lot of screaming and crying," Paul Parkus said.
The Parkus brothers said FBI agents interviewed them for hours after the shooting. Paul Parkus said he took photographs of the dead gunman, but the airport security staff told him to stop.
In a telephone interview, Joan Parkus, the brothers' mother, said she had been tense all day after hearing what had happened. While her sons were at the airport, she was at home in Walnut Creek, Calif., about 40 miles outside San Francisco, where the brothers grew up.
She said she had listened to news accounts of the shooting and that her sons had called her about noon to tell her they were unhurt. She was not surprised her son had helped stop the attack.
"That's pretty much what David would do," she said.
A graduate of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., Parkus practices trauma surgery at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital with his business partner Rusty Milhoan, who is also a trauma surgeon at the hospital.
Milhoan said Parkus has been at the hospital in Beaumont about five years, and they have been business partners about two years.
Milli Parkus is a nurse, and Paul Parkus is a freelance photographer.
The Parkuses said they will reschedule their flight to the Philippines, try to forget the shooting and enjoy their vacation. They said they had been wary of something like the shooting happening in the Philippines but had never imagined it would happen in Los Angeles.
"It was pretty scary," David Parkus said. "It's a freaky incident that could happen anywhere."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1483542
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Beaumont doctor helps subdue gunman
By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
A Beaumont man headed to the Philippines on vacation helped tackle and disarm a gunman who killed two people at the Los Angeles airport late Thursday morning.
Associated Press /
Los Angeles Times / Paul Parkus
With travelers crouching in the foreground, security officials stand over the body of the gunman who opened fire at Israel's El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles Inter-
national Airport Thursday.
David Parkus, 39, a trauma surgeon at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont, said he saw the man suddenly open fire with a pistol on people in line at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al Airlines.
"He got off about four or five shots," Parkus said. "Everybody hit the ground."
Parkus, in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, said he was standing in line at the Singapore Airlines ticket counter about 30 feet from the gunman, who was about 6 feet tall and 225 pounds and was wearing a blue blazer, slacks and a red tie.
'A lot of screaming' Beaumont doctor helped subdue gunman
Parkus' girlfriend, Pati Cure, a nurse from Beaumont, and his brother Paul Parkus and sister-in-law Milli Parkus, both of Los Angeles, were with him. They were headed to the Philippines for a long-planned vacation.
David Parkus said he was looking at the El Al ticket line when the shooting started.
"All of a sudden I see this guy start shooting," he said.
He said he initially threw himself to the floor, but then he looked up and saw an El Al security guard wrestling with the gunman.
"The security guard was smaller than the gunman and was having trouble with him so I ran over to help him out," Parkus said.
Another security guard shot and leaped on the gunman, Parkus said. Parkus said he grabbed the gunman's legs and helped hold him down. He kicked a knife out of the man's hand after the man had stabbed the guards several times.
Then, Parkus said, he felt the man die as he held him. The man had been shot at least three times, he said.
One security guard had been stabbed slightly in the back and the other stabbed lightly in the leg, Parkus said.
Parkus, who was not hurt, said he told the guards he was a doctor, but they told him they didn't need his help with the gunman anymore.
Parkus said he briefly examined the wounded bystanders. One man appeared near death after a bullet had entered his buttocks and come out his chest.
Cure and Parkus performed CPR on another victim, and he helped a third who had been shot in the leg.
Paul Parkus said he was not shocked that his brother had acted so quickly. He said that when he heard the shots, he grabbed his wife and his brother's girlfriend, pushed them to the floor and covered them with his body.
He said one of the women looked up moments later and saw David Parkus grappling with the shooter.
"There was a lot of screaming and crying," Paul Parkus said.
The Parkus brothers said FBI agents interviewed them for hours after the shooting. Paul Parkus said he took photographs of the dead gunman, but the airport security staff told him to stop.
In a telephone interview, Joan Parkus, the brothers' mother, said she had been tense all day after hearing what had happened. While her sons were at the airport, she was at home in Walnut Creek, Calif., about 40 miles outside San Francisco, where the brothers grew up.
She said she had listened to news accounts of the shooting and that her sons had called her about noon to tell her they were unhurt. She was not surprised her son had helped stop the attack.
"That's pretty much what David would do," she said.
A graduate of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., Parkus practices trauma surgery at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital with his business partner Rusty Milhoan, who is also a trauma surgeon at the hospital.
Milhoan said Parkus has been at the hospital in Beaumont about five years, and they have been business partners about two years.
Milli Parkus is a nurse, and Paul Parkus is a freelance photographer.
The Parkuses said they will reschedule their flight to the Philippines, try to forget the shooting and enjoy their vacation. They said they had been wary of something like the shooting happening in the Philippines but had never imagined it would happen in Los Angeles.
"It was pretty scary," David Parkus said. "It's a freaky incident that could happen anywhere."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1483542
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Good thing the Israeli security fella was armed. Otherwise, all these "protective" gun laws would have cost a lot of lives.
We'll see if an armed guard happens to be around next time.
Stand And Be Counted
Eric S. Williams