Gayle, a loyal reader and regular commenter, noted on my last post — about a recent trip that Patty and I took to Florida — that I had missed some big news stories while I was gone.
One of those was the Shawnee gun shop shootout, which left shop owner Jon Bieker dead.
Coincidentally, a day later, my friend and fellow blogger Hearne Christopher called and asked if I would do a piece for his KCconfidential.com blog about the robbery and shooting.
I agreed to do it, even though I hadn’t gone back and read the news stories about the incident. I was going mostly on what I had heard and what Hearne told me about it.
My story ran on Hearne’s website today.
Since some of you, perhaps most of you, aren’t regular KCconfidential readers, I would like to post that story here — if, for no better reason, than to show Gayle that I wasn’t ignoring one of the most shocking crime stories our area has seen in years.
So, here’s that post:
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I was out of town when the Shawnee gun shop robbery and shootout took place, and I didn’t go back and read the news stories about it. From reading Hearne’s and Rich Steele’s pieces on KCconfidential, however, I see that store owner Jon Bieker’s decision to emerge from a back room during the robbery has come under close scrutiny. I’m sure that many members of the public have put themselves in his position and thought about what they would have done.
Hearne has asked me to weigh in on this, and because I’m like him – a former reporter – I am willing to offer an opinion on just about anything. (When we were at The Star, we had to repress our opinions and approach everything with fairness and even handedness in mind.)
At any rate…I don’t pretend to possess the Wisdom of Solomon on this, but I would put my chips somewhere between Hearne’s position that Bieker should have stayed in the back room and Steele’s assertion that Bieker did the right thing by coming out.
Certainly, Bieker did the right thing by coming out. It would have been a cowardly husband, indeed, who remained ensconced in the back room while his wife was getting robbed up front. In addition, I think it’s likely, as Steele propounds, that Becky Bieker got struck in the head with a weapon before the shooting started.
Once the bullets started flying, any means of attack short of firepower would have gone out the window.
But here’s where I differ from Steele: Just as it’s logical to presume that Becky Bieker was struck before the shooting began, it’s just as logical to assume that her husband emerged from the back either pointing a gun or shooting one.
That was, in all likelihood, his fatal mistake.
Yes, of course, he should have come out. But putting myself in his shoes, my first thought would have been to cooperate. A lifetime of having been advised not to resist people pointing weapons at me would have told me to come out slowly, with my hands up and palms facing forward. I would like to think I would have said, “OK, we’re not making any trouble for you. Take whatever you want — guns, money and anything else — and, please, be on your way.”
Unfortunately, being a gun owner and gun carrier, Jon Bieker wasn’t conditioned to accommodating robbers.
To me, that’s where the pro-gun, National Rifle Association philosophy that gun carrying makes for a safer society (because you have the means to get the bad guy before he gets you) falls completely apart.
We’ve all heard the tired and lame NRA refrain, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
Last Friday’s incident puts the lie to that mantra. We can all understand Becky Bieker’s devastation at the loss of her husband, but her statement that “he saved my life because he carried a firearm” is, sorry to say, totally off base.
If that incident had taken place in a hobby store or a hardware store and there were no guns around, other than those in the hands of the perps, in all likelihood no one would have died.
As a police official told Hearne, “Most of the time, they (armed robbers) are just going to rob you and be on their way.”
Given the setting – a gun store — and given Jon Bieker’s predilection for taking up arms, gunplay was almost a foregone conclusion. He probably lost his life — and could have cost his wife hers — because of his philosophy and because he was packing.
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Please feel free to comment, if you have thoughts about the piece.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
My response from KCConfidential:
Fitz, the flaw with your theory is that you’re assuming that Jon acted based on emotion. I suspect not. They both were skilled self defense trainers and part of that training is to learn to distinguish the difference between a situation that is life threatening and one that simplyinvolves loss of property.
Had Jon thought that the robbery only implied loss of property I suspect he might have followed your advice and cooperated, but he didn’t. He clearly felt that this was a life-threatening situation and acted accordingly and the evidence supports his conclusion.
Since the robbery, we have heard that this same gang may have been involved in 5 other robberies with each one becoming more violent than the one before. Given that they were attacking a gun store there is no question that they would anticipate a violent confrontation and were prepared to murder those who confronted them. Common sense tells us that once the shooting started no one was punching anyone, so the attack on Becky would have been for openers. As for the notion that his mistake was not taking cover, again, he was a trained self-defense instructor, were cover available he no doubt would have used every resource available to him.
That said, the simple fact is that anyone who suggests that there was someplace to take cover is ignorant of both the store and ballistics. Some of the bullets from the firefight went through the walls of the building into the store next door. Where inside the same building could he have taken cover?
Thanks to his courage four thugs are off the streets. Thanks to his courage there are many guns that are not in the hands of other thugs. Thanks to his courage, his wife is alive. There are however four things that are truly a shame, Jon is dead and the three thugs he shot aren’t. Also sad is that our corrupt Kansas Supreme Court would protect these thugs from getting the punishment they richly deserve. But if nothing else is clear, Jon was a hero who came to the defense of his wife in the face of three armed thugs.
So, you already had it in the pipeline — how prophetic!
I have to agree with the always-erudite Mr. Altevogt. Of course we can’t know exactly how events unfolded, but you have to know all four perpetrators had guns drawn already when Mr. Bieker emerged from the back and were probably in a heightened state of emotion. The chance of none of them firing off a round is pretty slim.
Once Bieker initiated the shooting, there was no doubt about what was going to happen next. It’s total speculation that the perps were in “fire, aim, ready” mode. It perplexes me why anyone would go against law enforcement’s sound advice to go along when a gun is pointed at you. Cops have the most experience with these situations — not the NRA and not the many would-be cowboys out there on the streets.
Unless you have inside info, we don’t know who fired the first shot. This is one of those subjects that has very stong advocates on both sides, but to call all people who carry (which, btw, includes women) cowboy is demeaning and inaccurate.
Jim, shame on you for wanting to spend a little time in Florida relaxing with your wife and watching the ponies run when you could’ve stayed in “Dodge” and caught the latest shoot-out! Where are your priorities at, man? Remember, this is America, the same country that once had a major league baseball team known as the Colt .45s and one of its minor league teams was called the Colt .22s. How cute! Hey, I cover the City Council meetings in a town that just happens to have the same name as a famous gun manufacturer, and the irony is, because of the recent crazy changes in the Kansas gun laws, the town is essentially prohibited from preventing either its own citizens or anyone else from carrying a gun into City Hall, so the Chief of Police sits there during council meetings with a loaded gun in his holster as protection for the mayor and council members. Is this a great country or what?
What a memory you’ve got, Rick…I did not remember that before they were the Astros, Houston’s baseball team was the Colt .45s.
According to Wikipedia: “The Astros were established as the Houston Colt .45s in 1962. The current name was adopted three years later when they moved into the Astrodome, the world’s first domed sports stadium. The name reflects Houston’s role as the center of the U.S. Space Program.”
You have no idea who shot first. We do know that armed men came into the store and from what I have heard (being a part of the pro gun community from sources that know) Becky was struck in the face. Any expectation that Mr. bieker could arrive on the scene and passively hope for a continuation of the robbery on non violent terms seems bizarre. These men came ready to do violence and Mr Bieker did what any sane person would do by coming to the aid of his wife which he did accomplish. They were ready to shoot and they did. He did exactly what I would have done. Passive non resistance sometimes works but sometimes it does not. If you want to depend on the kindness of armed men willing to kill, knock yourself out. It’s more than possible they both could have been executed. We will never know. Mr. Bieker had no time to make any sophisticated judgements and walked into a bad bad situation. It’s easy to second guess someone but harder to truly know the best decision unless your ideology demands pacifism. I don’t know if he saved his wife’s life or not but it is evident that he struggled to save his and her life. Instead of criticizing Mr. Biekers actions lets hear about the sorry young men with wasted lives who destroyed the lives of innocent people just trying to make a living.
Good points, Gary. I’m anxious to find out how the crime unfolded. I don’t know why the police are holding back on that.
They are being unusually quiet about this.
Fitz, everything I’ve seen from my knowledge of the shop and the physical evidence from pictures tells me that Jon followed an almost textbook self defense approach to the robbery (which would have included an assessment of whether, or not, it was just a simple robbery, or a life threatening situtation.) Based on that, I offered to write a likely scenario of what happened and why to post on Hearne’s blog, but no response.
Everything that occurred, including the perp’s injuries, could have been predicted from anyone who’s even had a mediocre CCH class.
Hold it, wild man…
I left an invitation for you to write your essay on how the robbery may have gone down both in the comments section and via email.
However, unless I’m missing something, I’ve yet to get your piece, although you emailed me back that it would be forthcoming.
Just sayin’
By the way, who shot first is irrelevant. Jon would have been justified in opening fire under at least a couple of legal theories and once someone, anyone, died, the thugs were candidates for felony murder charges.
I stand corrected. Just got a response from Hearne, scenario forthcoming.
I just now am seeing your correction, John – that’s cool.
Perhaps you missed my invitation in the comments section in response to your offer.
So then, is it coming or did you get it out of your system here on jimmy c?
I will say this, I stand with Fitz on him coming g out gunless, hands up, palms forward.
Robbing this girly, boutique style store wasn’t anywhere near as daunting as most guns stores, which are extremely forbidding and intimidating.
It doesn’t even look like they inventory hardly any guns it’s so small and filled with chick-looking accessories. Like maybe they have a small inventory and then people have to order their arms.
Which is exactly what the sign indicated when they were closed after the shooting.
That people who had guns on order would be taken care of when they reopened.
With four dudes in such a very tiny store, chances are at least one of them was standing next to Becky and when Jon stormed in with his gun at the very least pointed, if not firing, the bad guy closest to her would have likely smacked her with his gun to get her out of the way as he prepared to blast back at John.
And look, Jon obviously had to have some form of training for his licensing, but that’s hardly indicative of him being a seasoned veteran of shootouts.
He was an IT, for crying out loud, who only a year or two earlier started making enough money at the shop to quit his day job.
As Fitz duly noted, in all likelihood he’d be alive today if he’s followed the advice that he was undoubtedly trained to do; hands up, don’t shoot.
Hearne’s comments are filled with conjecture and assumptions. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy when you have all the time in the world later and four men with guns are not pointing them at your wife. I would suggest that if these are the same young men that were robbing other stores previous to this episode, then it would appear that they were taking things up a notch by robbing a store that did stock firearms and could well expect to be shot at. This is a well known phenomena by the police. They become more dangerous as they go.
I think the far more interesting journalistic topic would be the four young men. How did they get this way? What happened to them that they took up guns to rob and kill? I think there is a story there that would be far more illuminating that any second guessing of poor Mr. Biekers actions. No, seriously, I would love to see someone do an article on that.
The difference between Altevogt’s analysis and Fitz’s analysis is that Altevogt is focused on the legal excuse that, generally, you may draw and discharge a firearm if a firearm is pointed at you. Absolutely, self defense is perfectly legal, and even though, as Fitz points out, police often advise citizens to cooperate with life-threatening gunmen because the typical loss turns out to be property instead of life, cops themselves are not legally required to practice what they preach in this regard, and they don’t. And because the cops take a “do as I say, not as I do” stance on this question, I have a hard time second-guessing the shop owners for their reaction to a life-threatening crisis. Emotion? Damn straight. I’d be pissed enough to shoot, and I’m a pacifist. I have no hesitation criticizing their line of work, though. This shooting demonstrates that guns don’t protect you, that self-defense training with guns doesn’t protect you, and that gun ownership may make you a magnet for violence. Gun accidents are common even among cops and soldiers, the best-trained gunmen in our society. To promote and sell guns with a promise that they will make the owner safer is a deadly deception. Of course, TV and movies and our culture in general communicates the same promise (it’s not just the NRA, Fitz), so I’m obviously outside the mainstream with my opinion.
Now that the facts are emerging it’s clear to me that Beiker really had no choice but to fight for his life and the life of his wife. It’s clear the killers came there to do violence. Indeed, by any measure, he did the right thing as a stand up man and not a sheep.
http://www.kctv5.com/story/27943701/documents-shed-light-on-deadly-shootout-inside-shawnee-gun-store
It unfolded just about the way I saw it unfolding in my mind…I still think there was a 90 percent chance Bieker would not have died — and no shots would have been fired — had he emerged and spoken as calmly as possible and told them to take whatever they wanted. Those guys were not there to kill; they were there to get guns. If they were going to blow people away, they would have started immediately with Mrs. Bieker….That said, I fully understand that, given his line of work and the nature of his business, Jon Bieker’s only thought would have been: “Commence to fire!”