There’s something profoundly poetic about the Allen Police officer choosing to remain anonymous after his heroic action a few weeks ago to take out a killer who opened fire at the Allen Premium Outlet Mall.
He has been labeled a true-blue hero by media all over the country. And … he surely fits what anyone would describe as a hero.
He was talking to a young woman and her two small children when he heard gunfire at the mall. He reached for his rifle and sprinted toward the deadly sound.
He saw the killer and then shot him to death, but not before the madman had taken the lives of eight innocent victims.
Too often society tosses the word “hero” around, hanging the term on superstar athletes, for example. Nothing they do comes close to the heroism displayed that day in Allen.
Moreover, the officer’s decision to remain anonymous only heightens his heroism. He doesn’t appear interested in calling any attention to himself.
We are left, then, as bystanders to wish this hero well as he copes with the intense stress he clearly must have felt that day at the Allen mall.
A true hero doesn’t want to bask in his glory. He or she goes about living their lives. As the Dallas Morning News said in an editorial published this past Friday: “We don’t know his name. But we are grateful to him and all like him who give themselves to the protection of their communities.
“We need true heroes among us. And in Allen, we have one.”