This is the moment that a cop bravely pursued a gunman through a Costco in Lenexa, Kansas, while others fled the store.
Captain Michael Howell was on his day off when he saw the Ronald Hunt moving through the store with a gun.
The cop, who has worked for the Kansas City Police Department police for 22 years, can be seen stealthily trailing the man in the video.
He later shot the gunman dead when 58-year-old Hunt turned his revolver on the officer.
Neither Howell or any other customer was hurt.
Captain Howell was modest about his heroism: ‘I’m just a cop doing my job.’
‘My greatest fear was we had kids with their moms, with their grandmas, with their dads,’ Howell said, according to Police One.
‘It was little kids running and screaming. And seeing the fear in their faces and knowing whatever it took, I had to do whatever necessary to end this threat so they wouldn’t get hurt.’
The footage shows a Costco employee drop to the floor when the gunman points his gun in their direction
Captain Michael Howell was on his day off when he saw the Ronald Hunt, 58, moving through the store with a gun
The video shows Hunt walking in the store, then pointing his gun at a Costco employee, who drops to the floor.
The footage then cuts to customers fleeing the shop floor, before Howell can be seen stealthily tracking the gunman.
Howell also described what happened when he saw the gunman. ‘I could see a white male, looked kind of disheveled, wearing a camo jacket, waving a large revolver, looked like about 10 or 12 inches long, pushing a grocery cart and not looking at anybody.
The police captain, who has worked for the Kansas City Police Department police for 22 years, can be seen stealthily trailing the man in the video
The gunman, Hunt, reportedly said ‘I’m an off-duty U.S. marshal and I’m here to kill people’ as he moved through the store with his revolver
‘But I heard him say three different times, “I’m an off-duty U.S. marshal and I’m here to kill people.”‘ reported KMBC 9.
He added that he knew he had to use the element of surprise as he was not wearing his bulletproof vest.
Police One report that Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said the police captain had ‘acted with extreme courage, and saved an unknown amount of innocent lives.’