Montini: DPS officer’s savior is NOT a Good Samaritan

The regular guy who shot and killed a man attacking a state trooper on Interstate 10 Jan. 14 was not a Good Samaritan.

We should stop calling him that. It’s an insult.

To him.

The man who saved the officer’s life is much more than that.

A Samaritan steps in after an injury occurred

In the Bible story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) two passers-by come upon the victim of a crime. They ignore the injured man, even though the men who had robbed and beat him have long since fled.

The Good Samaritan then comes along and cares for the injured man.

That isn’t want happened here.

DPS: Man who shot officer's attacker wrestles with taking a life

The attacker in this case shot a DPS officer and now was beating him. The hero citizen took a weapon from his car and ordered the attacker to stop. He didn’t.

The man then shot the assailant, killing him.

DPS director Col. Frank Milstead said, "I can tell you this: If he didn't save Trooper Andersson’s life, he definitely kept him from having much more severe neurological injuries from this beating that he was taking helplessly at the time.”

The man Milstead praised is keeping to himself for now.

Bless him.

Thank him.

There are many more heroes like this man

Sooner or later, someone with an agenda will try to exploit him and his heroism. I hope that doesn’t happen, but you know how things are.

This good and brave man is among those individuals who, frankly, are better than the rest of us.

Me, for sure.

There are many of them out there.

One example from our state is Bill Badger, who was wounded in the head during the 2011 shooting in a grocery store parking lot that killed six people and injured 13, including former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, but who still managed to tackle the shooter and, with others, hold him down and disarm him.

Imagine that.

ROBERTS: A gun story to celebrate on Interstate 10

And there is Dawn Hochsprung, the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School who was shot and killed while lunging at the mass shooter who killed 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn. in 2012.

Some heroes were even caught on tape.

There is video of a young man named Jon Meis, a student at Seattle Pacific University, tackling a gunman who killed one person and wounded three during an attack in 2014.

It goes on.

All of these people are better than that

For those of us with long memories one of the courageous acts we saw played out on live on TV featured a man named Lenny Skutnik, who jumped into the icy Potomac River to rescue a survivor from a plane crash in 1982.

Of the 79 passengers and crew members on that doomed flight, only five would survive.

In addition to Skutnik, however, there was a passenger in the water, a survivor. He got hold of the rope from a rescue helicopter but passed it on, several times, to others. By the time the helicopter got to him for one last rescue, the man had gone under the water. Drowned.

It took a while before he was identified.

His name was Arland Williams.

There are more people like this, many of whom never even come to our attention.

Not one of these individuals is a Good Samaritan.

They're better than that.