G&FC Officer 'Enraged' By Seeing West Memphis Shoot Out

PARAGOULD, Ark. - A state Game and Fish Commission wildlife enforcement officer credited with saving lives when police confronted a father and son who had killed two officers said he thinks he probably surprised the assailants with his actions.

"They never dreamed they were going to run into a redneck from Arkansas who was going to ram their vehicle with his four-wheel-drive truck," Michael Neal said in a speech to the Paragould Rotary Club this week.

Authorities say that after a May 20 traffic stop, Jerry Kane, 45, and his son Joseph, 16, of Forest, Ohio, killed a pair of West Memphis police officers: Sgt. Brandon Paudert, 39, and Officer Bill Evans, 38. After the Kanes' van was spotted in a Walmart parking lot, police converged on the site and a shootout erupted that eventually killed both Kanes.

Neal said the first thing he saw when he pulled into the parking lot was the suspects firing at Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby and Deputy Chief W.A. Wren, who already had been wounded. He said as soon as he saw the suspects firing on the downed officers, he knew he had to ram the van with the SUV he was driving.

"Seeing a suspect firing at an officer, I was so mad," Neal said. "I was enraged."

Neal said he then leaned across the center console of his vehicle to trade shots with the two suspects until he ran out of ammunition, while bullets from the Kanes' weapons pierced the windshield over his head. He showed the audience pictures of bullet holes in his seat, headrest, windshield and all over his truck.

"There are bullet holes everywhere I should have been," Neal said. "He didn't expect me to be leaning across the console and firing back."

Neal called it a miracle he wasn't wounded.

"If you don't believe in God, this is a prime example of God," Neal said.

Neal was later honored as a hero by the agency he works for, and by officers at shootout who credited him with saving the lives of Busby and Wren.