Airman who returned fire at gunman was thinking of ‘everybody else’

On a late summer day in the driveway of his home, Senior Airman Harrison Friar came face-to-face with a gunman on a rampage through his neighborhood.

The man, Dennis Burnell, lived directly across the street from Friar and had just fatally shot two neighbors,  authorities later said, when Friar confronted the man. The sound of the shots had sent the Air Force intelligence troop into his driveway carrying his own personal firearm.

Both Burnell and Friar were armed with pistols. As the two men looked at each other across their neighborhood street, Burnell took aim at Friar and fired.

“My first thought was definitely not my own safety, it was just concern for everybody else,” Friar told Task & Purpose on Thursday. “And then once I realized that everybody else is in at least a semi-safe position, that I need to return fire and stop him from continuing to attempt to kill my wife and I and keep him from hurting my family.”

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An airborne cryptologic language analyst assigned to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Friar was on parental leave at his home in Glenwood, Iowa, on Aug. 6, about 20 miles from the base.  His youngest daughter had been born a little more than a week earlier, and his family was just sitting down for dinner when they heard loud noises outside that they initially thought were fireworks, he said.

After realizing they’d heard gunshots, Friar told his father-in-law to move the children to safety. Then he got his personal firearm, a CZ P-07 9mm pistol, as his wife looked out the window. She yelled that Burnell, their neighbor, was outside with a gun.

According to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, Burnell had just fatally shot a couple that lived nearby, Brandon and Stevie Oman. 

Friar went outside with his pistol. His wife followed.

“I wasn’t going out there excited, like: ‘Hey, I get to use my firearm to shoot someone,’” Friar told Task & Purpose. “I thought that maybe he went crazy. If I walk outside, he’s going to see me with the firearm. He’s going to get scared, go inside, police are going to show up and take care of the problem. But, if not, at the very least I want to protect my family and my friends that I had seen hanging out outside about 15 minutes prior.”

At first, Friar couldn’t see Burnell. The family’s cats had sneaked out with them, so he and his wife tossed them back inside. As they sought cover behind cars, a neighbor yelled out that Burnell had fired into his window and asked them to call 911.

Then Burnell came out of his screened porch about 30 yards away. He was armed with a Smith & Wesson pistol. What happened next was captured on video by a security camera at Friar’s home.

Senior Airman Harrison Friar hit a gunman twice after returning fire on Aug. 6 in Glenwood Iowa. Air Force photo courtesy of Senior Airman Harrison Friar.

“We just looked at each other for probably less than a second before he started raising his firearm up at me,” Friar recalled. “I screamed, ‘Don’t,’ hoping that maybe it would de-escalate the situation. Maybe he would snap back to reality. But it didn’t do anything. He obviously intended to fire upon us.”

Burnell fired about eight times at Friar and his wife.

“I think the first shot that he shot at me, I did hear it whizz by,” Friar said. “It hit the brick just inches behind me, just inches to the left of where my shoulder was. That one was very close. The second shot that I can really see in the video actually hit the windshield of a car that we had back in the driveway. My wife was standing in that spot, maybe less than half a second before. But it got caught in our son’s car seat. So, he was extremely close to hitting me and then also extremely close to hitting my wife.”

As the bullets whizzed by, Friar thought about his children inside his home and his wife standing near him. He knew he had no choice but to shoot back. After checking that none of his neighbors were in his line of fire, Friar shot twice.

His firing technique, he admitted, was not perfect.

“I did not use any sort of tactical training in the slightest,” Friar said. “I fired one-handed across the street at him and managed to hit him both times somehow. So, I will admit that was not proper shooting form in any way, but it did work out for me somehow. I feel like the adrenaline did the opposite of making me nervous. It just calmed me down and locked me in at that moment.”

Friar hit Burnell in the leg and wrist. Initially, Friar couldn’t tell that he had wounded Burnell, who looked at the ground briefly and then retreated into his house. Burnell came back out to fire at Friar’s house, coming close to hitting his father-in-law, who was running to a bedroom.

By that point, police had arrived at the scene. Burnell went back into his home and apparently set off an explosive device that set the house on fire, setting off an explosion of ammunition that he had stored.

After it was all over, Friar learned that Brandon and Stevie Oman had been killed. Only then, did he, he said, did it hit him how close he and his family came to death. A preliminary investigation into the incident has concluded that the shooting was the result of an “interpersonal dispute” between Burrell and the Omans, authorities said.

Now that he has had time to reflect on the shooting, Friar said the most important lesson is that people need to be prepared when things go wrong.

“It can be something really small all the way up to a fight for your life,” Friar said. “I think it’s also important to just hold all your loved ones close. Be prepared for anything to happen because these things can happen with no notice. We never expected anything like this. So, I think it’s good to always be alert, be aware, and be ready, especially in the event that something like this does happen.”