This story in today’s Post points out heroism that’s around us – a very rare example of putting one’s self in harms way to protect others.
Officer Rodney Chambers put a death grip on the grenade and walked a few steps across G Street, away from other people. Behind him, the grenade’s pin was lying on the ground, and a U.S. Capitol Police officer was fighting to handcuff the man who had pulled it.
The grenade was later found to be harmless, a practice grenade with no explosives that might have been bought for $8 in an army surplus store. But Chambers said he had no idea of that at the time. Tubbs “was acting like it was going to go ‘boom’ and he expected it to go ‘boom,’ ” Chambers said. “I’ve seen what a grenade can do. If you’re not nervous about somebody pulling the pin on you, then you’re crazy or stupid.”
DeCarlo put out an “officer in distress” call, and officers from various agencies descended on the street. But Chambers walked off from the swarm, so that if the grenade exploded no one else would be hurt.
Chambers said that he tried to think like a “squared-away soldier” and that he couldn’t throw the grenade away because of the cars and people in the area. He sat down on a ledge, he said, and rested his arm on his leg so that it wouldn’t get tired.
