As of this past Tuesday, new information has come to light that highlights just how impressive the reaction from Good Samaritan Elisjsha Dicken was to the chaos unfolding with the shooting that took place this past weekend inside the food court of a mall in Greenwood, Indiana.
Police have stated that Elisjsha Dicken, age 22, has had no previous police force training and has absolutely no military background and that he was taught to shoot by grandfather, reported CNN.
Dicken was paying a visit to the mall on Sunday alongside his girlfriend when the shooter ran out of a bathroom and started to open fire on the unsuspecting shoppers. What happened next regarding his response to and the neutralizing of the shooter was simply outstanding.
While using a 9mm Glock pistol, Dicken fired off a total of 10 rounds and hit the shooter a total of eight times over the span of 15 seconds from a distance of roughly 40 yards away.
James Ison, the Police Chief for Greenwood, unveiled in a Tuesday release that he had made an error when he previously stated that Dicken had taken down the shooter in roughly two minutes and that he needed to correct the record, stated a report from WRTV Indianapolis.
“I would like to make a correction on a statement made yesterday at the 2:00 p.m. press conference concerning the Greenwood Park Mall Shooting. There was an error in the timeline of events given,” stated Ison. “The time lapse between the moment that [the shooter] exited the restroom and began shooting, and when he was shot by the civilian [Elisjsha Dicken] was only fifteen seconds, not two minutes.”
“The surveillance video shows [the shooter] exit the restroom at 5:56:48 p.m.,” continued the police official. “He was neutralized by Dicken at 5:57:03 p.m. This error was simply a result of misreading notes during the conference. I feel the need to correct this immediately. Thank you.”
Ison claimed that the actions of Dicken were “nothing short of heroic,” and continued on to add that he was “very tactically sound as he moved to close in on the suspect, he was also motioning for people to exit behind him.”
The Editorial Board for The Wall Street Journal highlighted that it seems that Dicken was, in fact, lawfully carrying his firearm under the state’s new law that lets people carry handguns without a permit.
“We could not find that he had a permit,” concluded Ison. “He was carrying legally under the constitutional carry law.”