Judge tells lessons learned from deadly shooting spree

Law enforcement and judicial officials learned “countless lessons” from a March shooting rampage that left 10 people dead in Coffee and Geneva counties.
Geneva Police Lt. Ricky Morgan, state Conservation Officer Joel Herndon and Geneva County District Judge Charles Fleming shared their experiences related to the events of that deadly day with Enterprise Rotary Club members Tuesday.
“The remarkable response of law enforcement officers who handled it like it was second nature” continues to amaze Fleming, who said the law officers “are truly the heroes” of the incident.
On March 10, Kinston resident Michael McLendon, 28, shot 10 people, including five family members, before killing himself in what Fleming described as “the deadliest mass murder in Alabama history.” Six people were wounded in the incident. “Three were peace officers and one was a four-month-old baby,” Fleming said.
The shooting rampage lasted 20 minutes while McLendon drove his Mitsubushi Eclipse 27 miles and fired weapons randomly out the window. Earlier that day, McLendon had purchased 1,000 rounds of ammunition from a Daleville store, Fleming said.
McLendon’s first victims were his mother and her dogs, shot to death and then burned in her Kinston home. In a note found after his death, McLendon wrote that his mother had been ill and he “wanted to put his momma out of her misery,” Fleming said. “He wrote that his momma didn’t know what hit her and neither did the dogs.”
“Some of the people who made us suffer will pay,” Fleming read from McLendon’s note, which ended with “Please forgive me.” 
After killing his mother, McLendon drove to Samson, where he opened fire on family members and then drove through town shooting apparently randomly out of his vehicle. “It was such a state of confusion over that short time span,” Fleming said. “Witnesses said McLendon looked like he was just shooting at stores and that he was smiling.”
As communications about McLendon’s route clarified, Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey and Morgan joined the pursuit with the mission of preventing McLendon from entering their town, Fleming said. At that point, Morgan executed a vehicle-ramming maneuver designed to spin McLendon’s car in a 180-degree turn, but instead the force of the impact created a 360-degree turn. “He came out of that spin and he came out firing,” Morgan said as he displayed photos of his vehicle’s smashed front windshield.
“I learned a lot from that.”   
The 10th and last of McLendon’s shooting victims was Bruce Maloy, who had been driving home from work in his 1985 Isuzu pickup. According to witnesses, when Maloy saw McLendon shoot two people at the Inland Big/Little in Samson, he turned his pickup around and began to pursue him. Fleming said Maloy rammed McLendon’s vehicle three times. The gunman opened fire on Maloy, who was unarmed, leaving him dead on Alabama Highway 52. “He died a hero by ramming the killer’s Mitsubishi Eclipse,” said Fleming. “What Bruce did was slow McLendon down enough for law enforcers to close in.”
The 51-year-old Maloy had been a familiar figure in court, Fleming said. “He never could come up with his child support payments.” He had formed an impression of Maloy through his multiple appearances in his court over the years, Fleming said. “And that is one of the lessons I have gained from this because that man died a hero.”
“He was insulted that someone did that in his hometown and he was going to do something about it,” Fleming said.
“I learned a lot from that.”