JC Stanton stands next to the display case containing the collection he donated to the Powles-Staton military museum.

ROCKWELL — In 1973, Charlotte police officer J.C. Stanton was responding to what he thought was a relatively normal call at a home in North Charlotte.

Stanton and partner Larry Walker were responding to the home at approximately 5 a.m. on June 5 in reference to an unknown disturbance call.

“He came out on the front porch, but you really couldn’t see much of what was going on. We got out of the car and walked up to the house and got up to the front porch and next thing I know, he said ‘this is my appointed hour to die, so I’m going to take you with me.’ Next thing I know, he jumped off the front porch like Superman and hit me in the face with the top of his head,” said Stanton.

A scuffle ensued, with the man going after Walker first, said Stanton. Then the man turned to Stanton and began firing a gun at him, hitting him once in the leg, once in the hip, once in the arm and once in the stomach. Each bullet barely missed hitting bones and ligaments that would have caused significantly more damage. The bullet that hit Stanton in the stomach stopped an eighth of an inch short of his spine, he said.

“In a split second, I grabbed the end of the barrel, and he shot the tip of my finger off, and that same bullet hit my shield (badge). That put me on the ground, because that was like someone hit me with a 50-pound sledgehammer. The badge combed and it actually went all the way to my ribcage and that’s what stopped it from pushing the badge all the way into me. As soon as I hit the ground, I sat up and he put the gun on the top of my head and pulled the trigger,” said Stanton.

The gun did not fire, with Stanton saying that he likely ran out of bullets. The man then hit Stanton on the head multiple times, fracturing his skull three times. Walker shot the man through both lungs.

“The guy laughed at us (after being shot). He said ‘now you’re done, now you’ve made me mad.’ And he ran and got in the police car, and pulled a shotgun out of the mounts in between the seats, studs, bolts and everything that holds the lock mechanism through the floorboard,” said Stanton.

He held the shotgun up to Stanton’s head and “was trying to figure out how to pull the trigger on it,” said Stanton. Walker then shot the man through the neck.

“He said, ‘boys, you don’t have nothing better than that?’ And then he just dropped,” said Stanton.

Stanton was then loaded into the back of a police vehicle and rushed to the hospital. He said that one of the main reasons that he did not go into shock was his constant fear that they were going to crash.

“I was lucky. All the bullets had hit me and didn’t hit any vital organs. I was in the hospital for about 10 days, and actually went back to work after. They wouldn’t let us go back on duty until the investigation was over, so I went back and worked for dispatch for about four weeks,” said Stanton.

Stanton was the first Charlotte officer awarded the Silver Cross, which is given to officers who were seriously injured in the line of duty.

Stanton would serve as a full-time police officer in Charlotte for 30 years, before retiring in 2002 and continuing to work as a reserve officer for another 13 years.

A blown-up photo of the badge that saved Stanton’s life is now stored in a display case at Powles-Staton Funeral home in its military museum, along with Stanton’s military police uniform from his time serving in the Vietnam War.

Stanton, a Bryson City native, served as security for the Army Security Agency in Vietnam. The ASA was one of the first units sent into Vietnam and served as one of the primary intelligence agencies during the way, collecting information on North Vietnamese troop movements.

“They had directional finders back then where they could pinpoint where a person was sending Morse code from. They had them all over the country, so they would feed this information back to the infantry. The troop movement, some of it was sensitive and had to be gotten to the infantry units within hours,” said Stanton.

He added that the ASA also monitored Chinese and Soviet Union troop movements. When there was sensitive information that had to be gotten to different areas of the country, Stanton said he would be flown on Air America, the CIA-owned airline that supplied and supported covert operations throughout Southeast Asia.

Stanton served a full tour of 12 months, returned home for 30 days and then served six more months in Vietnam. When he returned to the United States, Stanton said as a trained MP, he naturally began to look for jobs with police departments throughout the country.

His job applications were accepted by departments in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and several other cities throughout the nation, but Stanton said he wanted to be closer to home so he went to work with the Charlotte Police Department, being sworn in in 1971.

Stanton said that after retiring, he began collecting military-related items, especially ones related to the Vietnam War and World War I, which his father fought in. He wanted to place that collection in a public place where others could enjoy it, he said, and so reached out to his local members of the N.C. House of Representatives for information. Someone from Raleigh recommended Powles-Staton to him, and Stanton connected with Russ Roakes from the funeral home

“When he told me his story, and then he combined it with the military police, I knew immediately that I wanted him to be a part of our museum here. There was no question whatsoever,” said Roakes.

After working with Roakes and Powles-Staton, Stanton attended the funeral home’s spring veteran’s lunch, where he met Sheriff Travis Allen. The N.C. Department of Justice’s Trevor Allen reached out to Travis Allen and said that the NCDOJ was struggling to find someone who had been injured in the line of duty who was willing to attend the N.C. Peace Officer Memorial Day Ceremony in Concord and place a rose for officers who had been killed while in the line of duty.

Travis Allen reached out to Stanton through Roakes, and Stanton agreed to participate.

“Travis called me and asked if I could do it on short notice, it was like a week before. I said ‘I don’t care, I’d be honored to,” said Stanton, adding that it was the only ceremony he had been to since receiving his Silver Cross and that he was glad to be able to participate in the “beautiful ceremony they had.”