Houston McCoy
Houston McCoy was a police officer in Austin Texas who shot Charles Whitman Jr., a man who had just killed 18 innocent people.
Scholars would later identify McCoy as one of the first police officers to describe shooting someone who seemed to want to die - a phenomenon now known as suicide by cop.
Serial killers and spree killers were not a recognized threat in 1966, when the shooting occurred, and Austin police lacked both the training and equipment to respond. Scholars who documented the creation of SWAT teams have written about McCoy and Raymond Ramirez's lack of training and equipment as one of the triggers for the creation of SWAT teams.
Scholars have also identified McCoy as one of the earliest diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Early life
Death
McCoy suffered from debilitating lung disease for years prior to his death, on December 26, 2012.[2] His death triggered renewed reporting on the shooting, and discussion as to the relative responsibility he and Sergeant Martinez held in the death of Whitman. Up until 1970 Martinez was widely credited with Whitman's death.[3] However autopsy results said Whitman died of wounds to his heart and head, and it was recognized that it had been one of McCoy's shotgun blasts that hit Whitman in the face.
McCoy had been generally reticent about accepting praise for his role, saying in a 2011 interview that, he did not want to be defined by that single day.
Daughter Monika joins the Austin Police Department
In 2013, McCoy's daughter Monika McCoy, joined the Austin Police Department.[4] She was 42, and her children were adults, when she joined the force. She says that, even in Kindergarten, pictures of her father, in uniform, inspired her to become a police officer.[5]
On the fiftieth anniversary of the shooting his daughter Monika was sought out for comments on her late father's role.[6][3][7][1] That reporting noted that the Tower is visible from her beat, the West Campus neighborhood.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Michael S. Rosenwald (2016-08-01). "‘He was looking straight at me’: The brave officer who helped stop Charles Whitman". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2020-12-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20201206190631/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/08/01/he-was-looking-straight-at-me-the-brave-officer-who-blew-away-charles-whitman/. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "It was 2008. McCoy, one of the Austin police officers who killed University of Texas Tower sniper Charles Whitman on Aug. 1 1966, was being interviewed on video by Mary Ellen O’Toole, an FBI agent who specialized in school shootings."
- ↑ Ricardo Gandara (2012-12-27). "Houston McCoy, police officer who shot UT Tower sniper Charles Whitman, dies". Austin-American Statesman. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20220224025626/https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2012/12/27/houston-mccoy-police-officer-who/6700022007/. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "It’s generally accepted that it was McCoy’s shotgun blast that felled Whitman. But Martinez shot him, too, and initially got the credit until about 1970, when then-Police Chief Bob Miles first began to publicly talk about McCoy’s role in stopping Whitman."
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Molly Hennessy-Fiske (2016-05-22). "Fifty years after the first campus massacre, a question lingers: Who killed the killer?". Los Angeles Times (Austin, Texas). Archived from the original on 2021-04-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20210421195616/https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-tower-20160522-snap-story.html. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "It was the designation of “Ramiro Martinez Day” in 2006 that finally persuaded Houston McCoy to tell his side of the story. By then he was in a nursing home with lung disease."
- ↑ "UT Tower sniper hero’s daughter joins police force". KHOU (Austin, Texas). 2013-12-14. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20220224015722/https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/ut-tower-sniper-heros-daughter-joins-police-force/285-320622131. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "Monika McCoy was one of 33 cadets to receive their badges on Friday. Her father didn t live to see the day, having died a year ago at age 73. But Monika McCoy says she s sure that he and her mother are proud of her from beyond."
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Jazleen Shokar (2016-08-01). "Officer who shot sniper remembered by daughter as a family man". The Daily Texan. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20220224021032/https://thedailytexan.com/2016/08/01/officer-who-shot-sniper-remembered-by-daughter-as-a-family-man/. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "Monika McCoy, now an APD officer herself, said that around the 40th anniversary when a lot of the police officers, victims and their family members were reunited, her father started talking about the Tower shooting more and she began to understand his role and the impact it had on him."
- ↑ Greg Flakus (2016-08-04). "Daughter of Policeman Who Helped End Texas Rampage Now Patrols Same Beat". Voice of America (Austin, Texas). Archived from the original on 2017-05-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20170526001755/https://www.voanews.com/a/daughter-policeman-end-texas-mass-shooting-patrols-same-beat/3448005.html. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "Putting themselves at great risk, the elder McCoy, using a shotgun, and fellow officer Ramiro Martinez, using a handgun, located Whitman in the northwest corner of the tower's observation deck and shot him dead."
- ↑ Michael S. Rosenwald (2016-07-31). "The loaded legacy of the UT Tower shooting". Washington Post (Austin, Texas). Archived from the original on 2021-03-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20210307202231/https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2016/07/31/the-loaded-legacy-of-the-ut-tower-shooting/. Retrieved 2022-02-23. "Houston McCoy, one of the first officers to respond, quickly realized police were outgunned. In a letter nearly 20 years later, McCoy described his attempts to assemble a counterattack."
