Hero Safeway employee and Army vet died tackling gunman

U.S. Army veteran Donald Ray Surrett Jr. served his country for 20 years and never saw combat, only to die in the produce aisle of a grocery store at the hands of a gunman.

Police believe the 66-year-old Safeway employee tackled the shooter as he sprayed bullets throughout the supermarket Sunday evening in Bend, Ore., most likely preventing more bloodshed.

Also killed was customer Glenn Edward Bennett, 84, of Bend, police spokeswoman Sheila Miller said. He was shot at the store entrance.

“Mr. Surrett engaged with the shooter, attempted to disarm him and may very well have prevented further deaths,” Miller said at a news conference as she struggled against tears, according to The Associated Press. “Mr. Surrett acted heroically during this terrible event.”

Police say Ethan Blair Miller, 20, of Bend, emerged from an apartment complex where he lived behind the shopping center, toting an AR-15 style weapon and a shotgun, and began shooting. After hitting Bennett, he continued inside the store, spraying bullets.

Police swarming the building found him dead in an aisle, a gun nearby. They found three Molotov cocktails and a sawed-off shotgun in his car.

The entire tragedy took four minutes to unfold, from the first 911 calls as the shooter burst in, to the moment that cops found him, police spokeswoman Miller said.

Surrett had for 20 years been a combat engineer in the Army, his ex-wife Debora Jean Surrett told AP. They lived on military bases across the U.S. and had been stationed three times in Germany. He had not been deployed in active combat zones, she said, though “they’re trained to be the first ones to go into war and the last ones to come home.”

With News Wire Services