It could have been a North Texas massacre with up to 150 victims, if not for a Garland Police officer who became the first lawman in the country to engage ISIS-inspired terrorists on Texas soil.

Greg Stevens, now 70, has lived for seven years on terrorist hit lists and shadowed by national intelligence. He joins the Blue Grit Podcast team to discuss the incident.

Stevens has also received the nation's highest law enforcement honor and is revealing himself publicly for the first time.

"They kept me out of the media and kept my name and so on anonymous for a long, long time," said Stevens.

Seven years ago, on May 3, 2015, he singlehandedly stopped an ISIS terrorist attack as a Garland Police officer.

Stevens was one of 40 officers assigned to a security detail at the Curtis Culwell Center that Sunday in Garland.

It's where a conservative group hosted a Muhammad cartoon contest that authorities knew would likely anger some Muslims.
"This had a lot of potential for bad things happening," said Stevens.

Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi drove from Arizona with guns on an ISIS inspired mission authorities say to kill the 150 people attending the event.

"This little black car came from my left as I'm facing out on the street," said Stevens.

Stevens believes the two attackers chose to pull up at the entrance monitored by him and an unarmed Garland ISD officer.

"They probably looked over there, look there are two guys, one of them is not even armed, and the other guy is 100 years old how hard can this be? The next thing I see is somebody dressed in all black stepping out of the car and the barrel of a rifle coming up in my direction."

Stevens fired 14 rounds from a handgun while the two men with rifles fired 35, one of them, striking unarmed security guard Bruce Joiner in the leg.

Within seconds, the veteran officer took down the gunmen from more than 30 feet away.
"This whole event probably didn't take no more than 10 and probably 15 seconds," said Stevens. "I'm a pretty good shooter. I'm not a great shooter. My training kicked in. I wasn't formulating a plan."

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