CATCHING UP

Recently got to see a man I’ve been out of touch with for 17 years.  I first met Bryant Kolner in 1998, when he had to shoot a man.  He was an off-duty policeman on his way to work when he stopped to do a good deed, and the next thing he knew a guy was trying to club him to death with a baseball bat.  Bryant drew his department issue S&W .45 and spun the guy to the ground with three 230 grain Gold Dot bullets.  The shooting went before a grand jury. I was contacted by deputy Kolner’s defense attorney, the very capable Fred Rench, and was allowed to address that grand jury by a fair-minded district attorney, Jim Murphy.  The outcome was that the grand jury cleared the officer, and indicted his attacker for felonious assault, to which he pled guilty. An account of the shooting and its aftermath later appeared in the Ayoob Files section at American Handgunner magazine.

Time went on.  Bryant changed departments.  He led his agency in number of arrests.  The time came when, running up an icy driveway to the aid of a battered woman, his feet went out from under him and he suffered a severe line-of-duty injury later exacerbated by medical malpractice.  In the end, he wound up having to leave the job he loved, based on the physical disability.

But, you can’t keep a good man down.  Today his job is representing the interests of retired safety personnel.  Working for the benefit of good people is just part of some folks’ nature.

It’s good to be able to touch the lives of people like Bryant Kolner.

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