Roger Carson Jones saved H. Lee Stephens from being shot, Pierce City, Missouri, March 25, 1962. With drawn revolver Stephens, 28, state trooper, was searching a suspected criminal and his companion whom he had ordered out of their automobile at the side of a highway. Roger, 16, schoolboy, and another youth arrived and offered their assistance. When the other youth approached him, the man pushed him forcibly against Stephens. As the youth fell to the ground, the man grasped Stephens from behind and threw one arm around his neck. With his other hand he grasped the wrist of the hand in which Stephens had the gun and held it across the latter’s chest. As the two men fell to the muddy ground, Roger threw himself on top of the assailant, a former professional fighter who outweighed him by 60 pounds, and tried to force him to release Stephens by applying a stranglehold. The man maintained his hold on Stephens and tried without success to bite Roger and to dislodge him by butting backward with his head. He then removed his arm from the neck of Stephens and struck Roger a hard blow on the head. Roger did not release his hold. Stephens, still holding the revolver in the hand grasped by the assailant who was on top of him, took hold of the gun’s barrel with his other hand. He twisted the gun toward the man and pulled the trigger. The bullet entered the man’s leg; and the leg of Roger received powder burns. Roger and the man still kept their holds, the assailant again wrapping his arm around the neck of Stephens. As the other youth got to his feet and left in his automobile to get help, Stephens called to Roger to move away, saying he was going to fire again. With effort, Stephens maneuvered so that he had the barrel of the gun against the assailant and again pulled the trigger. Roger, rolling away on the ground, then was three feet from the man. The second bullet seriously wounded the assailant and caused him to release Stephens, who crawled out from under him. The man was hospitalized, underwent amputation of one leg, and recovered. The powder burns which Roger had suffered healed in three weeks.
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