Officer's Gun Saves His Life In Unusual Way After Accused Killer Fires Shots
BENSALEM, Pa. (CBS) -- It takes just a nanosecond for a bullet, travelling 680 feet per second, to travel six inches.
But in what Bensalem Public Safety Director Fred Harran is calling "a miracle," a bullet, fired by a suspected killer, was stopped, when it struck the gun an officer was holding, most likely saving his life.
Harran says it happened as officers arrived to serve a warrant at the Knights Inn around 2:30 p.m. on November 7, unaware that inside room 142, accused killers Lloyd Franklin and Jennifer Lanning, wanted for murdering an elderly North Carolina couple were hiding.
Franklin, police say, ready to shoot the first officer who stepped into the room.
"He had the jump on us," Harran explained, "His plan was to fire away and get out of there."
It all happened in an instant, Harran says, the gunman jumping from a closet, opening fire from less than six inches away, the bullet lodging in a flashlight attached to the barrel of the officer's gun, stopping it, and allowing the officer to retreat unhurt.
"What truly can be described as nothing less than a miracle," Harran said. "They say God is everywhere, God was in the Knights Inn on November 7th at 2:30 p.m. for sure, because it was he that saved the officer's life."
After a two-hour stand-off, Franklin was found dead from a self-inflicted wound, his girlfriend and a second man travelling with them arrested.
"We got one dead bad guy, I can live with that, and two other bad guys in jail, and one cop that went home to his family. I'd call that a good day's work," Harran concluded.
The gun, Harran says, with the bullet still embedded in it, will now be displayed to all officers as a training tool, a lifesaving reminder that, in police work, even the most routine assignment can turn deadly in an instant.
