Charlie Blackmore Jr., a 32-year-old former Marine from Wisconsin was on his way home from work around 4 a.m. on Tuesday when he noticed a man violently kicking what appeared to be a large object on the sidewalk.
When Blackmore pulled over to the side of the road to see what was happening, he realized the man was kicking a young woman on the ground in the face and stomach.
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The former Marine jumped out of his vehicle and told the man to stop.
Blackmore said the aggressor started walking in his direction.
Blackmore, who recently acquired a concealed carry permit, pulled out his Springfield XDM 9mm.
"I said 'stop' and he starts coming towards me and that`s when I drew on him. He started getting closer and I said 'get down on the ground,'" Blackmore told Fox 6 Milwaukee. "I’ve already made it up in mind that if he came at me I was going to have to take him down and I told him that. I warned him multiple times not to come towards me because he was a big guy and I wasn’t playing around."
Keeping the man at gunpoint, Blackmore called the police. Responding officers wrestled the man to the ground and took him into custody.
Having served in the Marines from 2005 to 2007, Blackmore said he owns eight guns and has routinely kept one on him since a near-death experience seven years ago.
"I'm a Marine Corps veteran, you know, I would have done it for anybody," Blackmore said, adding that the victim "had a really big laceration by her eye and it looked like her nose was broken."
Blackmore said he overheard the woman tell police at the scene that the aggressor was an ex-boyfriend, who was "stalking her that day and then he attacked her on her way to work."
A situation such as Tuesday's is a main reason why Blackmore supports the state's concealed carry law, which went into effect Nov. 1, 2011.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. praised Blackmore in a statement to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel Wednesday.
"I want to get to a day when acts like this are viewed as a citizen doing their civic duty," he said. "Criminals have got to be reassessing things right now. They have to be asking themselves if it is worth it anymore, might they face resistance or be shot? That's a good thing."
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