On April 17th, John Hendricks reacted quickly and accurately to stop a mass shooting, likely saving numerous lives. Hendricks was exercising his Constitutional rights in Chicago, a town where they had been suppressed for generations. He was taking a break from accepting Uber fares when he saw a man rack a slide on a pistol across the street . . .

That’s when the man began firing at a group near him. Hendricks acted quickly and precisely. He fired about six rounds, hitting the attacker three times, a more accurate result than in most police-involved shootings. Hendricks made the tactically correct decision to leave the area once the threat was down. He returned to give an account to the police on the scene.

From buzzpo.com:

Hendricks returned to the scene when police arrived and held his arms in the air, concealed carry and firearm owner identification cards in hand.

He said it was a common-sense approach after what had transpired.

“A shooting just happened,” Hendricks said. “I’m the one that called, and I’m the shooter.”

“At the time, I remembered I still had my firearm on me,” he recalled. “I let them know that my firearm’s on my right side.”

The police took Hendricks’ gun, which is common in self-defense situations. I have often taught concealed carry students to expect their gun to be impounded by the police while they sort things out.

From the chicagotribune.com:

Hendricks said police took custody of his firearm that night, after he called 911 following the shooting, and that repeated phone calls regarding the status of his gun had gone nowhere until recently.

The South Sider said he was contacted Monday and received the required paperwork to claim his weapon.

He said he went to a police facility on the West Side Tuesday, and that it took about an hour to get his gun.

It took time, but Hendricks had his defensive firearm returned. This bodes well for Chicago and the rule of law. It’s a strong indicator to black people that the rule of law applies to them as well as any other citizens. It also counters the false meme of “racist police” that the Black Lives Matter radical left pushes.

If the Chicago police could rise above their institutional, leftist bias, they would give Hendricks an award. He should be a Chicago poster boy for concealed carry.

From buzzpo.com:

Hendricks who owns “quite a few guns” claims to be a stickler for following every concealed carry law. He told a story about visiting an University Village Quizno’s. There was an employee out front who was sweeping. Hendricks told the employee that he was armed and the employee said to just go inside anyways. Hendricks said he still refused.

He explained, “It says ‘law-abiding’ for a reason. I’m going to abide.”

This is exactly what those who push the “racist police” meme oppose and denigrate. Their claim is that if you are black, abiding by the law does not matter. Their approach exacerbates the crime problem and expands it. It’s a feedback loop that makes crime worse.

If the high crimes rates in black urban areas are going to be reduced, people in those areas must come to understand that the rule of law is real and will be enforced in their neighborhood. It is precisely what has worked in the approach pushed by David Kennedy from Harvard. Pushing the idea that black people can’t rely on the rule of law creates the conditions that criminality in black neighborhoods worse.

John Hendricks should be held up as an example as the armed hero that he is.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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49 COMMENTS

    • Unfortunately he WAS recognized for this incident. I hate to publicize it, but as a direct result of his action Uber decided to make Uber cars into Gun Free Zones, both for drivers and passengers. For my part, however, I NEVER ask my passengers if they are carrying. If they are good guys, I don’t care. If they are Bad Guys they will let me know when they are ready, so asking would not do any good. No cash on board anyway, so risk from an armed passenger is minimal and every Uber rider has previously given all sorts of personal contact information to Uber, so criminal activity would be exceedingly foolish. Ask the Taco Bell vice president in California.

      • Uber’s official policy is useless and unenforceable, so I doubt the percentage of armed Uber drivers has changed.

      • Well, if I were an Uber driver then I would treat it how we do in the pizza delivery business. Being armed is cause for termination in most companies, but the way we see it is that it is better to be alive and fired than dead and employed. The only way the company will know you are carrying is if you either have cause to use your weapon or are foolish enough to talk about it.

        If I had to shoot someone on the job I wouldn’t want to work there anymore for fear of reprisals from the friends and family of the attacker I had to put down, so ultimately the threat of termination is meaningless. The only thing these companies worry about is the bottom line and not getting sued. To them, their employees are merely commodities to be used and abused until they no longer serve their needs. It is up to the employee to make decisions about their personal safety because their employers simply do not care.

  2. Now if he had just listened to his moral betters and called the police to “handle it”, how many people would be dead?

  3. This guy was tooled up and ready to rock!

    It’s not enough to just be one, or the other, you have to be both.

    Carry on, my friend.

  5. Good to hear. Times are changing in the city. Still way too many “gun-free” zones but progress is being made. Thanks to COURT orders. Funny I saw the phrase “rule of law”-when has that ever applied in Chiraq? If the “people of color” ever decide to get off the dumbocrat plantation we will see real change. AS it is Chicago poisons the rest of Illinois…

    • I’m guessing the bad guy didn’t die, or they would still have the gun.
      7-8 months? Maybe a bit long. They likely had to wait until the bad guy was convicted of whatever charges were brought against him.

      • Nice guess, but no. In a Chicago Trib article on Nov. 20, the official police statement on why he didn’t have his gun back was, get this:

        “Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said an investigation into the gun was ongoing and that he did not know when it would be complete. He declined to comment on the specifics but said such investigations can include ballistic testing, trace comparison and other means of finding out if a firearm was involved in other incidents.

        It took 7-8 months to do that? For an honest citizen who bought his gun legally? That is total BS.

  7. Dean does a great job over at Gun Watch and in his contributions here. He’s in it for the long haul and I respect that. It also means that he might not always be as hard charging as I’d prefer. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all, and he does need to preserve credibility as a fair minded activist. So I can respect that, too. Still, the rank and file out here in pro-2A land need and want some red meat from time to time.

    For example: “It took time, but Hendricks had his defensive firearm returned. This bodes well for Chicago and the rule of law. It’s a strong indicator to black people that the rule of law applies to them as well as any other citizens. It also counters the false meme of “racist police” that the Black Lives Matter radical left pushes.”

    CPD is racist. Call it like it is. It may be just one of their many nefarious “isms”, but it’s an important one and they deserve to be called out on it. If we’re going to concede CPD’s institutional leftist bias, then their racism certainly merits mention, too. At the very least, it shouldn’t be dismissed with a wink and a nod reflected in placing “racist police” in quotes.

    Really, the underlying case of the violent criminal Everardo Custodio’s original April 17th shooting was resolved by August. That resulted in felony convictions for aggravated discharge of a firearm and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, with Custodio receiving concurrent sentences of four years and three years, respectively. Yet, it took until DECEMBER for the good guy with the gun to have said gun returned? Unconscionable.

    He was basically disarmed (I know, he owns others guns, but still) for the better part of the year for the crime of what? Legally exercising his rights? CPD’s only defense against such racism is that they’d probably treat all law abiding citizens with equal indignity in denying them their right to keep and bear arms, as well as their property. If that’s the argument they want to make, well, good luck. I won’t give them a pass.

      • Perhaps they’re really just white under the skin, in the same way Rachel Dolezal is black under the skin, or something. CPD is just another gang, whose colors happen to be the Chicago police uniform. Their loyalty is not to the law but to each other and to their own power over the population they rule. This kind of gang problem is prevalent in most big cities in the U.S. and a lot of smaller towns and counties as well. Justice is coincidental.

  8. Maybe title should have been ‘TTAG’s Gun Hero of the day.’ Back it up with a nice award from the site. Just because CPD wouldn’t do doesn’t mean TTAG can’t. And then have Colin & Robert personally deliver. Could get some distance out of this with fence sitters.

  9. Wait I thought CPD shot black folks for just walking down the street? You mean he had a GUN, and wasn’t shot? Next I suppose you’ll tell me he wasn’t smoking PCP, or waving a knife around…

  11. There’s very little mention in the news of this incident and the perp. Doesn’t fit the narrative that a good guy with a gun can’t do anything to stop a mass shooting. Good job John!

    • This is the first I’ve heard of this incident, and while I’m no scholar, it is the kind of thing I look out for.

  12. surprised tiny dancer and mcstreetlights didn’t blame all of the recent police shootings on this brother . . . . .

  13. Just a note, the Trib ran a story about this guy a few weeks ago and noted in the story that he hadn’t gotten his gun back yet. I’m sure given that publicity, the powers that be FINALLY sent his the paperwork to get it back. My sense is, if that situation wasn’t written about, he’d still be without his weapon.

    And not all Chicago PD are as anti gun as their former Super McStreetlights was. The blog, secondcitycop, has championed gun rights for a long time and actually made mention of this guy to get his gun back too.

    All in all, we need more stories like this. A LAW abiding CCW, minority, who exercises his right to save lives.

    Of course the NY Times would never highlight such a story and our president would never mention it as well.

  14. So Chicago’s checkerboard hats gave a legal gun back to an innocent man? This is something new — the Chicago PD actually obeying the law.

    • “This is something new — the Chicago PD actually obeying the law.”

      Ralph, I suspect the sh!tsorm surrounding the Laquan McDonald incident will soon reach a boil and the CPD is just doing a token PR move.

      That shooting combined with the off-the-books detention scandal at Homan Square leads me believe Chiraq is in for an old-fashioned Federal civil rights investigation.

      And about damn time.

      http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-disappeared-thousands

      • I suspect the sh!tstorm surrounding the Laquan McDonald incident will soon reach a boil and the CPD is just doing a token PR move.

        That’s a very perspicacious observation. Along with the recent discharge of that tool Garry McCarthy, I am expecting some other PR moves as well. Not that they will help. Lipstick on a pig and all that. But I am happy to say that I don’t expect to see Chiraq burn.

  15. “John Hendricks” – Another name on the list of people – citizens – who did the right thing when it mattered. Because we had not yet removed their ability to do so.

    So, we need to keep an inventory (tag cloud?) of stories like these, along with stories of non-reported “mass” shootings, crimes stopped without firing a shot, home invasions curtailed only when the victim shoots from inside the closet to protect her kids, and etc. (Related keep the lists of “regular people” who pull others from burning cars, deal with house fires, stack sand bags in a flood, and etc.)

    We need the lists to reply when some bozo pronounces: “A good guy with a gun, *doesn’t* stop a bad guy with a gun.” Not to “convince” the evidence-immune position-wrangler. (I’m looking at you, “Musket.”) But, as always, to perhaps persuade folks listening.

    It’s political theater. These things always, always, always play to the audience. Consider. “Activists” are already convinced of whatever it is they are yammering on about. They are making a spectacle to *convince someone else* to go along with what they’ve already decided is the answer. They aren’t in a discussion, seeking to learn something, or even seeking to persuade. They just want enough of the unconverted to go along, often one vote, one time. By any means they can find, including dirtying up the folks arguing differently, to discredit their position. Ad hominem is as good as going after the actual argument, often better, and often easier.

    So, keep the lists. And recite the lists. Calmly, but implacably. You convince by evidence, and also make the other folks look like liars and hysterics. It’s a three-fer.

  16. I see light at the end of a very long tunnel.
    Will his picture and story be in the white New York Times, white LA Times, white Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, etc?
    May be his story will but not his picture next to the story.

    • I suspect you are right. A Black hero? With a gun? Not killed by the Police while Surrendering?
      Oh gosh, we’d love to print that but the pub deadline was yesterday…..pffft

  17. Hendricks owned multiple guns so he wasn’t defenseless while cpd held his gun. This is why I tell people that one gun is not enough. If humanly and financily possible keep at least 2 guns.

  18. I find I can’t criticize-I have always assumed that if a cop removed my weapon, he/they would keep it, I would never see it again. As for this citizen, man, he rocks. He could be my neighbor any day.

  19. “Hendricks made the tactically correct decision to leave the area once the threat was down”

    Why is it the correct decision to leave the area???????

    That is not what I have been told by lawyers specializing in self defense with a gun. That say to stay there but do everything the police tell you to do. Have your hands in the air when they arrive and do not make any fast moves and totally comply.

    I would think leaving, could be seen as leaving the crime scene whether you committed a crime or not.

    • “…tactically correct decision…”

      “…lawyers specializing in self defense with a gun.”

      You kind of answered your own question.

  22. This article is clearly a work of fiction, propaganda from the Black Lives Matter movement is my guess, because there is no way some old black dude is statistically a better shot than the average police officer, no way. Cops are trained to the very sharpest edge, they are the absolute tip of the spear in this country, damn near superhuman. Even when I see some fat dumbass cop roll up to the local 7-11 and leave his squad car running, with his m4 in the rack, parked in the security cameras blind spot so he can get an a slurpy and some lotto tickets, in a shitty neighborhood next to an apartment complex full of drunks, tweakers and gang bangers, I know, he’s got it covered. If some shit popped off, he’d drop that slurpy and be on it like shit on rice. Cause cops in this country are, without exception, head and shoulders above the common folks. And that’s a true story.

    • ” Cause cops in this country are, without exception, head and shoulders above the common folks.”

      Without exception, you say?

      Whatever you’re smoking, can I have some from your bag?

    • Not sure about the new cop cars, but with the old school Caprices they could actually pull the ignition key with the car running and lock the doors. It was a special cylinder to do it.

  25. Glad he got this back. I think the media actually shamed them into doing it.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-concealed-carry-shooting-interview-met-20151120-story.html

    Sorry about the paywall. Glad to see he got it back regardless, but it’s stupid that it took that long.

    Agreed on the 7 year prison sentence. Who knows how much he will serve, but if it’s near 7 years I’d be surprised. I mean, this guy was a valid FOID card holder who bought his gun legally, right? If no FOID that’s a year, and if not eligible that’s 2-5 years. If he bought the gun from a straw man, that’s more time still. The guy he shot is a loose cannon who needs to be put in time out.

  26. While I applaud the man’s actions Dean really is out of touch. The media tends to show very slanted opinions that favor their agenda and refuse to show differing opions of Black people and rarely at that. BLM or Al Sharpton is not the voice for all Black people. I find that many Black people ( poor class, and working class, not necessarily middle class Black people ) have a lot of libertarian political standpoints. If anything people like Dean tend to be more statist than your average Black person ever will be. Speaking from a Texan standpoint and that of a big city in Texas such as a Houston with a sizeable Black community. What I find more often than not that people who have more money tend to favor stricter laws across the board, whereas people with little tend to favor less. The problem being that those with less money feel that their voice is not being heard and often do not vote because when they do it is more of the same of being ignored.

    I’d put it under the idea that people with more money have more to lose by not being proactive about their wealth and will do everything to protect is even if it means trampling underfoot the rights of people with very little wealth. At times even using those of little wealth as pawns in their grand schemes to protect their place on the rungs of society.

  27. Hey, why didn’t “the NRA” help this guy out? Oh, that’s right, NRA contract lobbyist for IL Todd Vandermyde is one of the people who sold out Otis McDonald. First Otis gets recruited for the Supreme Court lawsuit against the City of Chicago, because a black face looks good. Son of a sharecropper and all that.

    Next when the U.S. Federal Court in Chicago strikes down IL’s concealed weapons law in Dec. 2012, handing us the best chance in FIFTY YEARS to get a good carry bill on the books, NRA rat Vandermyde and his boy Rep. Brandon Phelps, the Hick from Harrisburg, put Duty to Inform w/ criminal penalties in Phelps “good” “NRA backed” HB183 carry bill, because the Chiefs of Police wanted it. Vandermyde, Phelps & McCarthy are all on the same side, constructing the criminal police state one bill at a time.

  28. This hero is know to very few people, but if the mass shooter he stopped would have been successful the mass shooter would receive wall to wall coverage on every news channel for weeks, and everyone would know his name.

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