23-Year-Old Airman Dies from Gunshot After Attempting To Stop Armed Robbers in Gas Station
I’d bet that most Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine veterans know that service marks a person. When we civilians hear that, we tend to think about things such as PTSD.
Yet that’s short-sighted thinking. Fighting in the armed forces often makes warriors into incredibly valiant people, and a case out of North Little Rock, Arkansas, has shown how.
Shawn Mckeough Jr. was celebrated by his family and friends, according to the Portland Press Herald. He graduated from high school in 2014, an athlete who loved getting a chuckle from his peers.
Instead of heading for college, Mckeough decided to enlist in the Air Force. He traveled the globe, stationing in nations such as South Korea, Germany and Kuwait.
When he returned to the states, he was stationed in Arkansas, and his girlfriend, Sarah Terrano, joined him.
On March 15, Mckeough had gone out to dinner with Terrano before deciding to join some friends at an apartment for drinks. When they ran out of beer, they took a ridesharing service to a nearby Valero Big Red store.
That was when things took a tragic turn. Two gun-wielding men went into the store after Mckeough entered it, WCSH reported.
Some kind of altercation ensued. During it, they opened fire and Mckeough was fatally wounded.
Terrano didn’t see the confrontation, but she heard a gunshot. After the would-be robbers fled, she ran into the store, only to find her boyfriend’s body.
“I really think he tried to get the robbers’ attention so that no one else would get hurt,” she said. “That’s just who he was.”
Mckeough’s mother was shocked by the news. “To fight for your country and then die like this …” she said, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Sr. Airman Shawn Mckeough was shot and killed Friday night while trying to stop a North Little Rock convenience store robbery. His girlfriend tells me: “Shawn was one of a kind, he lit up any room he walked into.” https://t.co/dJWBQx2UWR pic.twitter.com/m966A94Aj1
— Michael Aaron (@michaelfaaron) March 18, 2019
Sgt. Amy Cooper of the North Little Rock police said, “It’s just overwhelmingly emotional, especially when you involve a member of our armed services, someone who has stepped up and made the decision to defend their nation and take on that role. And to deal with the tragic death of a member such as Shawn Mckeough has just been difficult.”
The police, though, had good leads on the perpetrators. They got video footage that clearly showed the criminals and they are offering a $10,000 reward for any other information.
“They promised to get them,” Terrano said. “I want those two people to sit in jail the rest of their lives. I want them to think about this every day.”
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