DEMOCRAT CONSEQUENCES: ‘Officer Down’: Small Towns Shocked by Surge in Ambush Cop Killings

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‘Officer Down’: Small Towns Shocked by Surge in Ambush Cop Killings

Families, colleagues in Louisiana, Georgia, and Virginia open up in wake of heart-wrenching losses

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By Steven Kovac, The Epoch Times. December 9, 2021

DOYLINE, La.—“Crinkle-cut fries are better than curly fries.”

And with that, Officer Billy Collins got the last word in on a long-running household controversy.

The joke was the last thing 17-year-old Danielle Collins heard from her father as she left the house to pick up the family’s dinner.

A far different domestic dispute was unfolding at a nearby residence at that very moment.

“At 5:45 p.m., we got the call that a suicidal guy with a gun was arguing with his wife and had fired a shot in the air,” Sgt. Coby Barton of the Webster Parish Sheriff’s Office said. “Billy got there three minutes before I did. The location was just 250 yards from his house.”

The scene was in the 400 block of Green Tree Road, in the little rural village of Doyline, Louisiana, a community of 800 residents policed by a two-person department.

That night, on July 9, 2021, Officer William “Billy” Earl Collins Jr. of the Doyline Police Department became one of the 28 cops killed by ambush in the United States in 2021, as of Nov. 30.

When Barton and Lt. Chuck Clark arrived on the scene, Collins was talking to a woman at the rear of his patrol car. Then shots rang out.

“It all happened in three or four seconds,” Barton said. “Billy was trying to protect the woman when a shot struck him in the right side of his head, and he went down. The second shot tore through my car. The third blast blew out the front passenger window of Chuck’s patrol car.”

The rounds came from a 12-gauge shotgun fired by the husband of the woman.

“He fired only three shots from just inside the front door of the trailer house. They were 3 1/2-inch magnum shells loaded with double-aught buck,” Barton said.

One large caliber pellet missed Barton’s head by an inch. Another went by six inches from his upper arm and shoulder. The holes remain in the interior of his car.

To Barton, those three or four seconds transpired in slow motion. He grabbed his rifle and a trauma kit and radioed, “Officer down!”

Barton took cover behind his patrol car as the woman screamed to him to come over to help Collins. Clark positioned his car near Barton’s to form a better shield for Collins and the woman. He then grabbed his rifle and got down on the ground. The only thing going through his mind was making sure everybody was safe.

After that, Barton said, things went eerily quiet. The shooting stopped. The hysterical woman “went catatonic.”

Only four shots had been fired, all by the deranged husband.

When asked why he and Clark hadn’t returned fire, Barton cited concern for the safety of those in the area.

“Once you send a round, you can’t take it back,” he said. “We couldn’t safely shoot back without the risk of hurting someone else. There are houses behind the trailer house. People were coming out of the woods back there to see what was going on.”

‘Our Covering Angels’

Clark, a big, rawboned, athletic-looking man, tried in vain to get Collins into Barton’s patrol car. For him and Barton, help couldn’t arrive fast enough.

Deputy Tommy Maddox was the first to arrive on the scene once the shooting stopped.

“Tommy’s got a fake leg, yet he ran up the 60-yard driveway into who knows what like Carl Lewis. He peeled off his vest and shirt and pressed them against Billy’s head as a bandage,” Barton said.

Soon other support officers appeared on the scene.

“I call them our covering angels. They positioned themselves to provide cover for us if needed,” Barton said.

Minutes later, Webster Parish’s Sheriff Jason Parker arrived and took command. He directed an arriving ambulance to the driveway where Collins was located. The downed officer was placed on a backboard and loaded in.

By this time, around 6 p.m., Danielle Collins had returned from the restaurant.

“I asked my Mom, ‘Where’s Dad?’ She answered, ‘He was dispatched on a call. Just a domestic dispute,’” Danielle said. “Right about then, one of my friends from school texted me the short message, ‘Officer Down.’

“Mom talked to a friend of hers on the phone, who has a police radio, and asked her, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘I don’t know. Just get to the baseball field!’

“The baseball field seemed to us the place where the Life-Flight helicopter could land. Though not confirmed, Mom and I now suspected it was my Dad.

“EMS was already there. We were met by the mayor [Stephen Bridwell] who said to us, ‘It’s him. Get to the hospital’ [Ochsner-LSU Hospital in Shreveport]. People offered to drive us, but Mom said she wanted to drive. She turned a 40-minute trip into 25.”

‘My Dad Was Shot in the Head’

On the way to the hospital, Danielle Collins reached out to family and friends to let them know what was happening.

“At the hospital, people were gathering in the Family Room,” she said. “Grandma [Billy’s mother] drove herself from Minden. My step-sister was on her way from Oklahoma. Because of COVID, they wouldn’t let everybody in. My best friend, my great aunt, and great uncle and the youth leader from my church weren’t allowed in, so I went outside to be with them.

“It was a waiting game. Someone was watching live footage of the standoff on Facebook. Someone else was live streaming updates. That’s how I found out my Dad was shot in the head. Then a nurse came out looking for me, saying my Mom wanted to see me.”

The National Fraternal Order of Police (NFOP) defines an ambush as an attack in which an officer is shot without any warning or opportunity to defend himself. A total of 119 law enforcement officers have been shot in 95 ambush-style attacks as of Nov. 30. The number of ambushes is up by 126 percent over the same period in 2020.

While the family was at the hospital, the standoff at the trailer home continued.

A total of 200 officers surrounded the home. Despite all that firepower, the first and only shot fired by law enforcement during the five-hour standoff was taken by Clark, when a police spotter pointed out what was thought to be the red dot of a laser coming through one of the trailer home’s windows. It wasn’t.

According to long-time Doyline Police Chief Robert Hayden, there was no response from the barricaded gunman. No reply to the officers’ repeated verbal appeals to surrender. Just silence.

Hayden said the Louisiana State Police SWAT team used flash-bang grenades to create a diversion in order to slip a small drone into the house.

“We tried to talk to him through the drone,” he said. “The main goal was to see to it that nobody else got hurt, even the suspect. I’ve known the man for 30 years. I knew him to possess an array of weapons.”

Through the drone’s camera, the subject was seen lying unresponsive on a bed. The decision was then made to go into the house. He was still alive. First responders attempted to save him.

“He’d shot himself in the chest with a 22-caliber pistol after taking two or three bottles of blood pressure medication,” Hayden said. “The only harm done to him was what he had done to himself. Every effort was made to do him no harm.

“He was airlifted to LSU Hospital, where he expired a week later.”

Devastating for the Community

About 2 1/2 hours after her father was shot, Danielle Collins learned from her mother that he had died. A few days later, Danielle would deliver a eulogy before more than 3,000 attendees at her father’s funeral service.

Chief Hayden said: “It was a sad time. It broke my heart. It’s still broke.

“I think of Billy every day. I knew him for 11 years. He worked for me for four. He was somebody I depended on. He was always there when I needed him.”

“The day he died, I went home and took off the uniform and threw it across the room. I said, ‘I’m done,’” Hayden said.

“I was done, until my wife said to me, ‘Would Billy have quit if you had died?’”

He wanted people to know that police officers are “human, too.”

“This has been very devastating to this God-loving community,” Hayden said. “This village is so quiet, especially in the evening.

“The typical incident we have to deal with around here is a complaint that somebody’s dog keeps pooping in the neighbor’s yard.”

Those living in the community were shocked by the killing.

“Stuff like this doesn’t happen around here,” said Eddie Hozam, the owner of a combination gas station and convenience store in Doyline.

“Billy was a regular customer. He was a cheerful man. Everybody loved him. And the fellow who shot him was also one of my customers. He was always nice to deal with.”

Lifelong resident Jody Carter said Collins was a positive influence in Doyline.

“He was always so calm and collected,” Carter said. “He would much rather help someone than get them in trouble.”

Speaking for the Collins family, Danielle thanked her father’s fellow officers for the support they provided the family after his death.

“We would not have made it through this without the love and support of Chief Hayden, Sheriff Parker, Lieutenant Clark, and Sergeant Barton,” she said. “I know if I ever need anything, I can call on those four men. They are more than friends. They are family.”

She also had a message for the sons and daughters of police officers across America.

“I want them to realize that you have to share your Dad, or Mom, with the community,” she said. “The sacrifice of serving in law enforcement is not just paid by the officer, but by his, or her, loved ones as well.

“Not knowing if a Dad, or Mom, will come home again is as big a sacrifice as that made by the one who goes off to duty every day.

“And to the children of officers who made the ultimate sacrifice, I say, keep your head held high. Make them proud. Show them by your life that their sacrifice was worth it.”

According to the NFOP, of the 314 officers shot in the line of duty in the first 11 months of 2021, 58 died.

Responding to domestic disputes, making traffic stops, and navigating vehicle chases are some of the most dangerous duties law enforcement officers face. The number of shootings—and the death toll—rises every week.

Car Chase

In Georgia, flashing blue lights were all it took to make Capt. Justin Bedwell’s patrol car a gunman’s target.

The deadly scenario began when two brothers from Tallahassee, Florida, both in their early 40s, stole their mother’s pickup truck and went to Georgia.

Go, read the rest……

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