The Sheriff in Richland County says, "God put a shield of armor" around three deputies fired on by a heavily-armed man, who had told his parents he was training to fight in the Ukraine.
At a Tuesday news conference Sheriff Leon Lott said the episode started at 5:30 in the afternoon last Wednesday. That's when he 25-year-old high school dropout who'd been rejected by the military told the emergency operator, a woman was being beaten at his parents home in the Carriage Oaks subdivision.
The first of three deputies dispatched was slightly injured when one of sixteen rounds fired from the house shattered the windshield of his patrol vehicle. As it happened the gunman, later identified as Frederick Westfall, walked out and shot himself to death.
Westfall was wearing an armored vest; inside, investigators found a rifle with a flashlight and scope, fifteen loaded magazines of ammo, and a hand-drawn map of the floor plan and surrounding area, firing positions marked, and at the bottom, a smiley face and the words "dead pigs."
The Sheriff says he called the new conference to illustrate the dangers his deputies can face on any call they respond to.