A deadly night on Waller Creek 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
<http://www.austin360.com/aas/metro/060702/0607shootout.html>
Accident leaves man dead, starts a spiral of strange events
By Jonathan Osborne
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, June 7, 2002
A bizarre and deadly chain reaction involving an antique rifle, an angry pit bull and mistaken fears that a police officer had been shot unfolded this week on Waller Creek.
By midnight Sunday, Johnnie Lowell Thomas Jr. was dying of a gunshot wound, his dog was dead and investigators were trying to unravel the chaos.
The Travis County medical examiner has ruled Thomas' death an accident, and police say no charges will be filed in connection with the incident on Leralynn Street.
"A Sunday night of watching basketball and being out with your friends turned to tragedy," said Austin police Sgt. Joe Stanish. "Everybody involved . . . I feel for all of them."
Stanish said the evening changed course shortly after the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings in overtime, wrapping up the NBA Western Conference semifinals.
Thomas and several of his friends — all of whom had been drinking, police say — turned their attention from the television to an antique rifle. Curious about whether it worked, they decided to test it in the creek bed behind the duplex near 51st and Guadalupe streets.
"They had tied a string to the trigger in order to fire it from a safe distance," Stanish said. They fired the gun several times, then Thomas went to retrieve it.
"We believe he was walking out of the creek bed — gun in hand, barrel up — when he stepped on the string while stepping out of the creek bed, causing the gun to fire," Stanish said.
The bullet struck Thomas in the head, leaving him unconscious.
As his friends called 911, Thomas' pit bull, Junior, began attacking them.
"The dog knew his owner had been injured and became frightened and panicked," Stanish said.
When officers showed up, he said, the dog "literally had a hold" of one of Thomas' friends.
The officers first tried spraying the dog with Mace, then hitting it with a nightstick, but the animal wouldn't relent.
It then attacked an officer, biting him at least three times. That's when police fired on the dog, killing it, Stanish said.
"The officers who were away from the scene heard the shots fired and moved to that area," listening closely to their police radios, Stanish said. "They heard the officer say he had been bit and they thought he said he had been hit. That's where the confusion began."
A call for assistance and a report of an officer down went out over the radio. Police cruisers swarmed the street, drawing the attention of neighbors, including Dan Eckam, who lives next door. He said it sounded as if a gun battle had unfolded.
"I heard three or four shots," Eckam said. "The next thing I know, some other police cars start showing up. Maybe an hour following that, I saw injured people. Two were being carried away on stretchers."
When the first back-up arrived, the misunderstanding was resolved quickly, Stanish said.
"There was no gunbattle. There were no citizens in danger. There were no shots being fired at officers," he said. "There was a great bit of confusion for a very brief period of time."
Thomas died in the Brackenridge Hospital emergency room at about 1 a.m. Monday.
Thomas, who was unemployed, had moved to Austin three years ago. He was a private person, friends say, and he had earlier told them that he didn't want a funeral.
Instead, he will be cremated, said his best friend, Kisha King, who lives outside New Orleans, where she and Thomas grew up. Now she must decide where to spread his ashes.
"His dad kind of left it up to me," she said.
Thomas, who loved computers, Japanese animation and low-rider bicycles, was goofy and klutzy, as well as irresistibly likable, she said.
"He was one of those people who, at times, would drive you nuts. But no matter how crazy he drove you, you couldn't help but love him," King said.
She thinks she'll spread his ashes over the Mississippi River, where it meets New Orleans' French Quarter near Jackson Square. She also hopes to plant an oak tree in his memory at the nearby Audubon Nature Institute, where she works.
"He's going to be really, really missed," she said. "I don't know what to do without him. I feel really lost right now. My Johnnie Angel. It was a cheesy nickname I gave him a long time ago that is now ironically appropriate.
"It's going to be really hard on a lot of us."
josborne@statesman.com; [+1-512-]445-3605
Submitted on 06/08/2002
Submitted by:
Olen Sluder
Reference:
Austin American-Statesman
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