Newnan, GA — Police credit an off-duty employee at a bar in Georgia with preventing a mass shooting when an angry patron threatened to shoot the bar up and later returned with a gun.
The footage shows the dramatic story that unfolded outside Fat Boys Bar and Grill on Highway 16.
Police show an unruly customer, Kevintez Mathewis, 27, being sent out of the bar after being “disorderly and belligerent” to customers and staff.
Mathewis was unhappy about being ejected and reportedly got back into the bar several times through different entrances.
Security sent him outside each time until he was eventually tossed out the back door, falling to the ground.
Mathewis tried to fight security to get back inside and was growing more irate.
He threatened to return to the bar and “shoot the place up.”
All the while, the hero is seen background of the video.
Ben McCoy, 28, was quietly watching Mathewis grow more agitated.
McCoy took Mathewis’s threats to return to shoot up the bar seriously.
He went to the trunk of his car and got a small caliber rifle from the trunk of his vehicle.
McCoy moved the gun to the middle seat, where it was easily accessible from the driver’s seat.
And then he sat and waited.
The crowd of onlookers and security went back inside, and still he waited.
The Gunman Returns:
You can see McCoy startle when he hears a gunshot from the parking lot.
Then Mathewis comes back into the frame—this time carrying a gun.
And that’s when McCoy showed that he was a hero.
He shouted to draw Mathewis’ attention to himself and distract him from going into the bar.
Mathewis started firing immediately and stuck McCoy.
Matheiws followed McCoy out into the parking lot and continued to fire at him.
He shoots McCoy four to six times.
He grabbed McCoy’s rifle off the ground and ran off into the dark.
Mathewis was later tracked down by police with a K-9 unit and was arrested.
He was charged with aggravated assault.
McCoy didn’t hit Mathewis but the distraction he provided was enough to save lives.
He has undergone surgery, but his condition is unknown.
Police have said that if not for McCoy’s actions, there’s no doubt that Mathewis would have gone into that bar and killed as many people as he could.
A quiet, calm, good-guy-with-a-gun saved the day again. A good guy with a gun–and the heart of a lion.