A heroic Fort Stewart soldier who stopped accused mass shooter Quornelius Radford said his Army training took over in the moments he confronted the suspect on Wednesday.
Sgt. Aaron Turner, who knows the alleged Army base shooter, initially tried to calm the 28-year-old down and distract him from targeting “leadership” — but had to make a courageous grasp for the weapon before any more people got hurt.
“I ended up taking charge by grabbing the barrel and the extended magazine at that point,” Turner told the Associated Press.
“Pretty much training just ended up kicking in at that point. It wasn’t about my life at that point, it was about the soldiers and the personnel. Making sure they get out safely.”
Prior to the heroic disarming, Turner revealed that he tried to talk Radford down during the incident which had Fort Stewart on lockdown for over 40 minutes.
“I was pretty much asking him ‘what was going on’ and pretty much why he was getting to the point of doing that,” Turner told the outlet.
“He just pretty much got to the point of telling me ‘Get out of here.’ Pretty much that he’s not going to end up hurting soldiers, just leadership.”
Turner was one of six soldiers at Fort Stewart to receive the Meritorious Service Medal for stopping the shooting spree which injured five people.
Officials have not announced a motive for the shooting.
Radford sent a cryptic text message to his aunt before Wednesday’s shooting, writing, “he loved everybody and that he’ll be in a better place because he was about to go do something,” The New York Times reported.
Two soldiers who knew Radford in 2018 while in training at Fort Lee said he was relentlessly mocked for having a speech impediment.
Back in January, Radford posted on Facebook that he lost a loved one in a wrong-way crash and that he was drinking alcohol to “make that pain feeling go away,” NBC reported citing friends.
In May, Radford was arrested for driving under the influence in Hinesville, Ga., a small town near Fort Stewart.
