POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY, Okla. — Deputy Garey Knoles responded to a domestic violence call in Pottawatomie County on Oct. 29, 2021 — a call that would drastically change his life forever.
"When I arrived on scene, I was met by Absentee Shawnee Tribal Officers and there are two of them that were backing on the call,” Knoles said.
He and the other officers pulled up to the house and immediately spotted the person they were called about walking in and out of the home.
“We decide that a perimeter needs to be set up around the house just to watch and make sure he can't leave,” Knoles said.
Video from Knoles's body camera shows the moment everything began to escalate. As he started around toward the back of the house, he was immediately knocked off his feet.
“When I am pulling back from my first position to get to the house, that's when I was shot,” he said.
He looked up and saw the person shooting at him over and over again with an AR-15. Knoles was shot seven times and sustained serious injuries all over his body.
“The first round, it's the round that saved my life basically," Knoles said. "It sounds weird, but to me it's the one that put me on the ground which gave me a lower profile."
Out in the open with no protection, he says he was forced to shield himself using his hands. He wasn’t the only one that was shot at.
“Our Absentee Shawnee Tribal Police partners, they had also showed up on the scene and was shot at about 45 times as a matter of fact, just those two guys,” says Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth.
During the shootout, deputies say the man shot and killed his wife and then took his own life. When Scott Walton with the Stand 1st Foundation heard of the shooting, he says he knew he needed to act.
His organization provides life-saving ballistic shields to departments that have less than 100 officers, or who cannot afford to buy them.
“The ideal shield is lightweight enough where you can carry it and it's about nine pounds, it's rifle-rated, and gives you those options,” Walton said.
He says the time has come to equip law enforcement with the equipment they need to stay safe so that no lives are lost because they don’t have this life-saving tool. That’s why the Stand 1st Foundation awarded its very first shield to the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office.
“These shields should be in every patrol car that exists, and they ought to be in every church. They ought to be in every school especially, commercial buildings, court houses, you know we just don't see enough of those,” Walton said.
Booth said he agrees.
“To be able to have that shield in that situation, Garey would have been much more protected," Booth said. "I'm not going to say that he wouldn't have gotten shot at all, but the likelihood of that and being protected behind that shield would have eliminated most possibilities."
Miraculously, Knoles survived the shooting and although his injuries were extensive, he was able to return to his job. On the back of every marked unit in Pottawatomie County are the words, “In God We Trust.”
“[God] might have been riding with me,” Knoles said.
As he continues his recovery, Knoles says he has peace knowing that his fellow deputies have access to this life-saving shield, thanks to the Stand 1st Foundation.
“There's not a price tag or an emotion that you can put on that. It's overwhelming to know that somebody else is safe because of something that happened to you,” he said.
If you would like to donate, you can contact the Stand 1st Foundation at www.stand1st.org.
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