DON'T MESS WITH THE GUN BARREL CITY COPS

Yes Virginia, there really is a Texas town called Gun Barrel City. This thriving community of 5,000-plus residents on the shores of Cedar Creek Lake in deep East Texas includes the homes of wealthy retirees. It was incorporated in the late ‘60s to allow for the sales of beer and wine. The Gun Barrel City motto is "We Shoot Straight with You" and its logo is a rifle with two crossed antique pistols. ‘Nuff said!

MILES GRAY FOUGHT GUN BARREL CITY LAW, GUN BARREL CITY LAW WON
By John Nova Lomax

Houston Press Hair Balls
June 2, 2011

Put yourself in the shoes of 26-year-old Miles Christopher Gray of the East Texas town of Seven Points.

You've been reported to police as being, armed, dangerous, and at large near Big Chief Landing. You are in your Chevy Malibu when they arrive on the scene, and you hear something like this coming from one of the loudspeakers one one of their cruisers.

"THIS IS THE GUN BARREL CITY POLICE! PUT YOUR CAR IN PARK AND LET US SEE YOUR HANDS! GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW!"

That's right -- the Gun Barrel City cops are there, and they are not happy with you.

Do you:

A) Do what they tell you?

Or

B) Allegedly slam the Malibu into gear and try to run the cops over?

If you answered "A," give yourself credit for being smarter than Miles Gray. He chose "B," and the Gun Barrel City cops, the official police force where the town motto is "We Shoot Straight With You," lived up to that boast.

At first, it seemed otherwise. Gray appeared to have successfully weathered the hail of Gun Barrell City PD lead. He at first managed to drive right through it and elude capture long enough to make it ten blocks deep into a lakeside subdivision called Loon Bay.

That was where it became obvious that he had not been so lucky after all, as when the Gun Barrel City cops found him minutes later, he was shot full of holes. Gray was taken to East Texas Medical Center in Tyler for treatment, and there he remains, in critical condition.

Texas Rangers are investigated the incident, as is routine for cases involving cop-related shootings with small-town police forces.

Gray's previous record includes a 2009 meth bust in Henderson County.

Gun Barrel City is currently known for being the nearest town to a bizarre ten-years-and-running stand-off, in which a heavily-armed militia-type named John Joe Gray has barricaded some family members and himself against the world on his wooded 47-acre compound. He is protesting a third-degree arrest warrant and pretty much the entire 21st Century.

Local cops say the bloodbath they believe would ensue if they attempted to go get John Joe isn't worth the trouble. One points out that his crime would have brought him ten years or less in the pen, and that Gray effectively sentenced himself to more time than that by putting himself under what amounts to house arrest back in 2000. They say if he is spotted off the compound, he will be arrested.

And there the stand-off remains.