Bill Jordan?

Yes

After reading the entire TFL thread there is no definitive cite that the Jordan incident occured.

After an extensive web search I could not find anything there either.

This is all I could find a good story nonetheless:

Okay, The Story Of Ed:

Ed Cantrell, like I said, was a sheriff, and Mike Rosa was one of his officers, who apparently had been paying off informants with drugs from the evidence room, and been playing on the wrong side of the line. Cantrell went to have a talk with Rosa, and took along a pair of cops with him. During the talk, Rosa became more and more belligerent, and had his drink in his lap - leaving his hands free. During the talk, Rosa becomes silent, stares hard at Cantrell, and whispers the word "motherf*cker", and arches his back forward. Rosa's gun is carried in a hip holster, by arching back he has now cleared the weapon in preparation to draw. Rosa does not count on one thing - Cantrell has practiced his draws for decades, and has a lightning fast reaction time. Cantrell, in the time he sees Rosa move for his gun, draws, aims, and shoots, because he IS that fast. However, the two officers who were with Cantrell were not keeping an eye on things in the car, and missed it - Cantrell goes up on trial for murder of a cop, and in the newspapers gets painted as a villain who gunned down a saint cop.

During the trial the police who were with him even gave testimony that he told them to plant a gun on the dead man. Not to mention, Rosa never even had the chance to touch his gun. Cantrell's lawyer, a fellow shooter and a genius, picked apart carefully and thoroughly the entire court case against him, even the testimony from the officers - "Did he REALLY order you to plant your gun? Or did he tell you to throw the gun over here?" "Yeah, I think he said that." "Well...isn't it standard policy at an officer-involved shooting to give all firearms to the supervising officer?" "Uh, yeah..." "SO isn't it possible he was following procedure rather than trying to plant evidence?" "Come to think of it...yeah." At that point, the jury was convinced...except for one thing. How could they believe that Cantrell saw Rosa move for his gun, recognize the threat, draw the gun, aim it, and put a round between his eyes?

Enter Bill Jordan, one of the GODS of shooting. Cantrell's lawyer (whose name escapes me, I can't find the story) arranged a demonstration in the court to prove it. Using a pair of revolvers inspected by the judge and jury, and then loaded with blank rounds, Jordan holsters his gun and hands the other to a deputy. He tells the deputy to point the 2nd gun at him and shoot the instant he sees Jordan move. The deputy nods, and Jordan goes on talking for a moment, and then suddenly rips his gun free and pulls the trigger literally before the stunned (and quite possibly needing a change of underwear) deputy gets a chance to react. Jordan goes back on the stand, and admits that he's timed at being able to decide, draw, acquire, and shoot in a mere 0.27 seconds, compared with the normal human 1/2 second to merely recognize - let alone any other reaction. "And what about Sheriff Cantrell?" "Ed? Well, I reckon he's a mite bit faster'n me." The jury took just one hour to acquit on all charges.

You CAN get that good - it's just a result of a LOT of practice. Cantrell spent time every day, just practicing his draws. Just practice

There's an interesting A&E documentary about the Cantrell-Rosa episode, if you're interested. I think the show is called City Confidential.

Combat Handguns November 2003 issue has an article by Bob Arganbright on the gun Jordan used to give people to use when he did this demo. It is a single action Colt that Jordan called, "the Loser's gun."

Also a bit of info about the case cited above.

Bill Jordan's AD

For the puposes of this story, I will also define a miss as hitting something you were aiming at, but didn't know the gun would go off.
One of our better-known patrol officers found himself similarly alone one sunny day in a Border Patrol office in Texas. An excellent pistol shot, he whiled away an hour dryfiring at a little, numbered plate attached to the front of a steel locker.
Somewhere along the line, a cartridge found its way into the cylinder of his issue, four inch Colt New Service .38 Special. The gun went boom, and the slug went zip, right through the Chief Patrol Inspector's personal locker.
There was no concealing the damage. An investigation was inevitable, if for no other reason than that the chief's unused, but expensive, tailored uniform was in the metal closet.
The young officer displayed the coolness, ingenuity, and initiative that later led him to high government posts and an extremely respected position among all American shooters.
He took annual leave for the next couple of days.
At that time, the U.S. Border Patrol's issue revolver was the New Service Colt four inch .38 Special, with a blued finish. At the same time, the Texas Highway Patrol was issued the identical revolver, except in a nickel finish. Our miscreant border officer was no dummy. He realized that the chief of his station would track down the locker shooter, even if it meant calling in every New Service in the outfit and making ballistics comparisons of the bullet in his overcoat and a specimen from every gun in the sector.
The young officer happened to have a friend who who served as armorer for the highway patrol in San Antonio. He spent two days in the pretty town, sweating as the gunsmith removed the barrel from the guilty gun, nickeled it, removed the barrel from a highway patrol gun, denickeled and blued it, then swapped barrels.
In those days, brother officers stuck together.
An investigation, including a lot of sticky interrogation, was made (although I don't know whether they ever actually got around to bullet comparisons) but in the end, the matter of the gun-shot locker was marked unsolved.
Out of my high regard for him, and a certain uneasiness over what he knows of my own spotted past, I must decline to identify the clandestine locker shooter.

author: Skeeter Skelton

author: Skeeter Skelton

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I still miss him.

Enjoyed reading this thread, Jordan s a real legend. I just read no second place winner and really enjoyed it. I inherited the book from my Dad who passed away last year and he had tried to get me to read the book for a long time but i never made the time until this week. It's autographed by Jordan 2-19-1970. I'm pretty sure they were at a pistol competition somewhere.

I gave my copy of "No Second Place Winner" to my son-in-law when he graduated the police academy.

One of the greatest memories of two summers I spent at Camp Perry around 1980 was meeting Bill Jordan and getting to shake his (huge) hand.

I have a freind that served with Bill in the Border Patrol. I used to buy the one magizine he wrote for just to read his stuff and then stopped buying it when he stopped writting for it. Same with Skeeter. All the good writers seem to have died off. Sheriff Wilson writes some good stuff also.

I have heard the story for better than twenty years and have never seen any real evidence for it. I regard it as urban legend.

URBAN Legend IMO I got to meet Mr Jordan at a gun show in Little Rock Ar back in the 1980's. He signed my copy of No Second place winner. Jordan advice o me was Practice Practice Practice. Start slow using correct form and build speed.

Few men have ever really Impressed me. Mr. Jordan was one of 5 that left a real impression and that I left my 3 minutes spent with him with a deep and abiding respect for what he said and wrote.

With Jordan, Sketter, Cooper,and Keith gone Gun writters other than Mass are like hens teeth.

444 wrote:

Yes

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Do you have a reference??

This came up about 2 years and I couldn't believe it. I did some serious research and apparently there was considerable effort by somebody... the Border Patrol, maybe... to cover it up but a BP officer was indeed accidentally shot and killed in a patrol station by another officer who was showing off some fancy gun handling in the next room. I cannot offer proof positive but the info I dug up at the time indicated that it was Bill Jordan who killed the BP officer.

I believe this is the incident involving Jordan but note that the officer responsible for the shooting is not identified.

John A. Rector
Date of Birth: August 23, 1898

Began at INS: March 13, 1928

TITLE: Patrol Inspector

Date Died: October 16, 1956

DETAILS: At approximately 11:30 a.m., October 16, 1956, Patrol Inspector John A. Rector was accidentally shot by the firing of a .357 Magnum revolver by a fellow officer. The mishap occurred at the Chula Vista Sector Headquarters where two officers were discussing various guns and their limitations and advantages. During the course of the conversation, the .357 Magnum was unloaded, examined, then reloaded, and placed in a desk drawer. The two officers then examined a .22 revolver and soon the discussion returned to the .357 Magnum. At this point one of the officers reached into the desk drawer, picked up the pistol, and without realizing that it had been reloaded, pulled the trigger.The bullet passed through a partition wall into Patrol Inspector Rector's office where it struck him in the left jaw and ranged up through his head. Upon arrival of an ambulance and a doctor, Patrol Inspector Rector was removed to the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City. Two neurosurgeons from San Diego were called; however, nothing could be done for Inspector Rector. He died at approximately 2:00 p.m. the same day.

Yes - the story is true and has been varified through the years. A tragic accident.

Then it should be pretty easy to verify one more time, don't you think?

I've never seen it verified and think it's a real shame we're so eager to sully a good man's name on the flimsiest of evidence.

I've known about this for many years - no need for me to dig up the past . If you don't want to believe it , then don't .

Bill was ,and still is, a respected name in the firearm world . I never expected my friends, or my mentors, to be perfect - stuff happens - it was an accident - history.

Sorry .38 Special...it is true. I worked with many USBP members years ago. Some of the old timers I worked with in 1990 new Bill Jordan and they told me the story.

You can choose to disbelieve this, but that doesn't change facts. Bill caused a tragic accident. No one is perfect, and it does not change all the good he has done.

Hell, I know the moon landing was faked. I know it because I knew some guy who knew some guy and he told me.

You don't have to believe it if you don't want to but it's still true -- because it's written on the internet!

I knew Bill Jordan close to thirty-five years ago and had the chance to talk to him on several occasions when he was in Austin. He once actually gave me and some other officers a little one-on-several time to improve our own pistol-handling and I had a personally autographed copy of No Second-Place Winner. I wore a Don Hume rig with a River Belt and Jordan-style holster for years and have always thought it was the best, and most comfortable, rig I ever buckled on. Because of Jordan's influence, I carried a Model 19 Combat Magnum for a while but I eventually went back to the S&W Model 27 (with the old 3.5-inch barrel) because I liked to "experiment" with my reloads and the heavier gun could digest them better.

The story is true and it was something Bill regretted for years; it ultimately led to his retirement and subsequent work for the NRA. Accidents can happen to the best of us and Bill was one of the best. He was a big man in body and spirit and, sadly, his like shall probably not pass this way again. As he used to say, "He'll do to ride the river with."

Well .38 Special...sorry you feel that way. I guess I should not trust those that were actually there at the time...perhaps their "false" memories were implanted.

With all due respect, you are a stranger on the internet posting under a pseudonym. That's the point of my moon landing post: under the circumstances, anyone here can write anything at all. Simply repeating "It's true!" doesn't accomplish anything.

.38 Special said:

With all due respect, you are a stranger on the internet posting under a pseudonym. That's the point of my moon landing post: under the circumstances, anyone here can write anything at all. Simply repeating "It's true!" doesn't accomplish anything.

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Well .38, that is a very good point. Never thought about it that way! I guess you'll just have to keep searching then. It is sad but true, and if I knew you "for real" I'll bet you'd believe what I said.