DES MOINES, Iowa — Four firefighters are recounting their narrow escape after their rig was fired on at least eight times in early July while responding to a call.
“About as fast as it happened, he was gone,” Lt. Dave Huntoon said. “We looked at each other like, ‘Did that really just happen?’”
Des Moines Register reported that the firefighters had been responding to a fire alarm that had been pulled at a three-story apartment building when the shooting began.
Lt. Huntoon was sitting in the officer’s seat of the fire truck when the gunfire began; Engineer Dennis Jones was in the driver’s seat with Tim Mead in the back and Brian Peppmeier was climbing into the truck when the first shots went off, according to the report.
Police said Alonzo Kearney, 19, fired at least eight shots at the firefighters, one of which struck the front of the fire truck, according to the report.
No one was injured in the shooting and Kearney remains in jail charged with four counts of intimidation with a dangerous weapon; he has not told police why he fired the shots, according to the report.
“It wasn’t a set-up; it wasn’t to lure them there,” Des Moines Police Sgt. Jason Halifax said. “What this guy’s motivation was, it’s hard to say.”
Sgt. Halifax also said Kearney wasn’t shooting randomly into the air — he aimed right at the firefighters, according to the report.
“We’ve all been on calls where we get there and think, ‘maybe we shouldn’t be here yet,’” Jones said. “But this call was so routine. It was something we do all the time.”
But being shot at wasn’t on their list of concerns.
“I know it does happen,” Lt. Huntoon said. “I just never thought it would happen here.”