Something a bit different for a Saturday. For sure, this officer saved at least one life and quite possibly many others.
In 2010, Thomas Richard Cowan loaded 13 bullets into two handguns and drove to Sullivan Central HS in Blountville, Tennessee. He parked his car in a handicapped space just in front of the school’s main entrance. Second period was just getting under way at 9:10 a.m. Cowan got as far the waiting area between the two sets of doors at the entrance when Melanie Riden, principal of Sullivan Central, came striding through the locked doors.
Cowan trained a .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol at Riden’s face, said Sullivan County Sheriff Wayne Anderson. Carolyn Gudger, the school resource officer, arrived, drew her gun, then shielded the principal’s body with her own.
Riden fled and a moving standoff between Cowan and Gudger inched down the hallway, leading Cowan through the scattered pastel chairs in the empty cafeteria. It was a tactical move, meant to lure the gunman into a more contained place.
Sullivan County dispatch sent out a chilling alert: “Man with a gun at Central High School.”
Gudger told him to drop his weapon; he demanded she drop hers.
To the students locked down inside classrooms the incident seemed to last forever. But it was all over in minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds after Cowan drew his gun, two deputies, Lt. Steve Williams and Sam Matney, arrived. They entered through separate doors and met Cowan and Gudger – still in a moving standoff – as they reached a science pod behind the cafeteria. Cowan wavered; he jerked his gun from Gudger to the other deputies then back again. Once again, he was ordered to drop his weapon. When he prepared to shoot, they opened fire.
Cowan fell to the ground mortally wounded, his shoes just feet from the door to the library full of teenagers. The pistol in his hand had seven bullets in the magazine and another in the chamber. He had a second handgun in his back pocket, loaded with five rounds.
Without a doubt SRO Gudger is a hero. She engaged the gunman and protected the lives of the people she was there to protect. She did this while risking her own life.