Girlfriend of heroic armed citizen recounted to her grandmother how he saved her and ended Indiana mall shooting



The girlfriend of the armed citizen hailed as hero recounted to her grandmother how he saved her life and ended the Indiana mall shooting.

WTHR-TV interviewed the grandmother of Shay Goldman, the 19-year-old girlfriend of 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, who was credited with taking down the murderous shooter on Sunday.

"I just know when I got the phone call that she was at the mall, I was scared," said the woman, who wanted her identity kept private.

"She says, 'Grandma I'm OK, but I'm terrified,' and then she says, 'Grandma, what is the world coming to?' And she says, 'I don't think I'll ever step foot in a mall again,'" the woman added.

She said Goldman told her that Dicken pushed her out of the way when the shooting started and told her to stay down.

Goldman also said that she had spotted the gunman near the bathrooms before he started shooting.

"She said she had that sick feeling like look behind her or beside her, and he (the mall shooter) was walking out behind her. And she said, 'Grandma, I seen a long gun.' And then all of a sudden, Eli told her 'get down' and pushed her, and she said it went from there," the woman explained.

Goldman said she hid behind a kiosk as her boyfriend shot at the attacker.

Police said the attacker tried to retreat back to the bathroom under the gunfire, but he fell and died before being able to take cover.

"His actions were nothing short of heroic. He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun. Was very proficient in that, was tactically sound and as he moved to close in on the suspect, he was also motioning for people to exit behind him," said Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison.

"Many people would have died last night, if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly within the first two minutes of this shooting," he added.

Police later identified the killer as 20-year-old Jonathan Sapirman. He was able to shoot five people, killing three, before Dicken took him out.

While some on the left tried to falsely accuse Dicken of breaking the law, police said he was legally allowed to carry his firearm due to the recently passed "Constitutional Carry" gun rights law in Indiana.

Goldman's grandmother asked the public to pray for Dicken because "to take somebody's life is hard."

She added, '"Just please, let's pray for them. That's what we need is to pray. And pray for this world!"

Here's more about the mass shooting:

Greenwood Park Mall shooting timelinewww.youtube.com

Sunny Hostin falsely claims 'good Samaritan' Elisjsha Dicken 'broke the law' by carrying a gun into Indiana mall, where he stopped a mass shooting



The co-hosts of "The View" attacked the "good Samaritan" who stopped an active shooter at an Indiana mall and got basic facts about the story wrong while dismissing the man's heroic actions as "lucky."

On Tuesday's show on ABC, Sunny Hostin falsely stated that 22-year-old gun owner Elisjsha Dicken "broke the law" by carrying his firearm at the Greenwood Park Mall, where he used it to stop an active shooter who killed three people and wounded two others with a rifle.

City of Greenwood officials called Dickens a "hero" and emphasized that he was "lawfully carrying a firearm" when he stopped the shooter.

But the ladies of "The View" criticized the argument that a good guy with a gun is the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun.

"They say that a good guy with a gun can control a bad guy with a gun. Well, we saw in Uvalde that that’s not true,” Joy Behar said, referring to a recent report that nearly 400 law enforcement personnel were at Robb Elementary School during the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas but had failed to stop the shooter. Whoopi Goldberg added that the same was true for the mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

But Republican co-host Lindsey Granger pushed back on their narrative, mentioning that "we saw that it is true in Indiana."

"It was true in Indiana. That was a lucky moment," Behar said dismissively. "And you know what? I feel like this: if you're a good guy with a gun you should not object to background checks or licensing or, you know, limitation on military-style weapons that kill thousands at once. Or hundreds at once. So, why can't they just pull that off?"

Later on in the discussion, Hostin criticized Dickens for taking action to stop the mall shooter, bringing up her own experience with firearms training.

"But with this good Samaritan thing. Listen, I was trained when I was at the justice department in firearms. And I was trained in defensive firearm training. It is very hard to hit a moving target," she said. "It is hard for people that are trained to hit a moving target. It is very lucky that that good Samaritan hit that moving target in that way."

She went on to falsely state that Dickens was carrying his firearm illegally.

"He had a gun permit but he wasn’t supposed in the mall with a gun,” she said. "So he broke the law even though he was a good Samaritan."

Indiana became what is known as a "Constitutional carry" state in March when Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed a law eliminating the license requirement to carry a handgun. Anyone who previously could obtain a permit to carry a handgun is legally permitted to do so without a permit in Indiana.

The Indianapolis Star reported that the Greenwood Park Mall had a no-gun policy, but attorney and firearms instructor Guy Relford told the paper Indiana's Constitutional Carry and Stand Your Ground laws protected Dickens' actions because he acted to save the people targeted by the shooter.

He compared the mall's policy to a "no shoes, no shirt, no service" sign, explaining that while a business could ask a customer that violates the policy to leave, no crime is committed unless the customer refuses to do so. In a case where the customer ignores the business' demand, he would be trespassing, which is a crime in Indiana.

"So the fact that (Greenwood Park Mall) had a no-gun policy creates no legal issue whatsoever for [Dickens]," Relford said. "And it certainly has no effect whatsoever on his ability to use force to defend himself or to defend the other people in the mall."

This was a point Granger made to defend Dickens from Hostin's smear.

“The law of Indiana is different than the law of the mall, of Simon malls. And I would say that takes precedence when you save a life,” she said.

Watch:


(h/t: Newsbusters)