Training, Nerves Aid Sharpshooters Shooting Of Kidnapper Was First For Oregon Tactical Team

Intense training in all kinds of weather and lighting is what makes a police sharpshooter sharp. Then he or she waits for a clear shot.

Those long hours of precision shooting paid off for the Douglas County tactical response team when one of its members shot and killed a man holding a 7-year-old girl hostage last week, allowing the child to run to safety.

“It’s just practice, practice, practice - at dusk, in daylight, in wet, dry, above, below, to the right, to the left,” said Douglas County Sheriff’s Captain Bob Stratton, the team’s commander.

“I don’t want someone who can just drill it on the spot,” he said. “I need someone who can assess everything else that is involved. I have to have someone with very good common sense.”

Last Thursday, just south of Yoncalla, the two sharpshooters lay side by side on a knoll, peering through their .308 Remington rifle scopes at the overturned car half a football field away.

Inside the vehicle, 25-year-old Lance Alexander held a gun to the head of young Kristina Jacobson. Alexander lay on his back clutching the girl on top of his body, their heads almost touching.

Negotiations continued as the sharpshooters looked for an opening, the police negotiator unaware of the decision to kill Alexander.

Once Stratton made the decision to shoot to kill, the sharpshooters waited for 20 minutes. Then, suddenly, the girl lifted her head just enough. The bullet passed through the car window and smashed into Alexander’s head, leaving the girl unharmed.

It was the first time anyone from the Douglas County tactical team had been involved in a shooting.

The team is made up of volunteers, including the sharpshooters, or long-rifle specialists, who practice firing around strange obstacles and at odd and varying angles. They practice shooting through glass to become familiar with the angle of deflection a bullet is likely to take.

“It takes a tremendous amount of physical ability and nerves of absolute steel to shoot that well,” Stratton said.