Kimberly Munley, Cape Fear Community College, 1999

Ten years ago, Kimberly Munley was an aspiring law enforcement officer and enrolled in the Basic Law Enforcement program at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, NC program in August 1999.

Instructor Ricky Simpson remembers her as an “excellent student who was quick to smile and tackle any assignment.”

“She was small in stature, but very large in heart and determination. She would not be denied the opportunity to work in law enforcement. No matter the task – driving, defense tactics, building searches, firearms or the 30 other areas of study she was up to the task,” Simpson said.

CFCC’s Basic Law Enforcement class was approximately 17 weeks at that time. After passing the N.C. State certification examination in December 1999, she was certified to work in N.C. She was hired by the Wrightsville Beach Police Department and did well.

Cape Fear Community College

Officer Kimberly Munley, the hero of Fort Hood

Reviews in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech, where 32 died, found that first responders’ decision to be careful and wait for backup probably cost lives as that gunman moved unchecked from classroom to classroom as law enforcement massed outside.

Those findings had found their way to Fort Hood’s Special Reaction Team, which had practiced an entirely new protocol for at least a year before Thursday afternoon’s rampage here, in which 13 were killed and at least 28 wounded.

“The lesson from Virginia Tech was, don’t wait for backup but move to the target and eliminate the shooter,” says Chuck Medley, chief of Fort Hood’s emergency services. “It requires courage and it requires skill.”

The task on Thursday fell to the petite Ms. Munley, a civilian police officer employed by the Army at Fort Hood. Munley had taken part in intensive active-shooter training during the past year.

One of the first responders, she exited her car and entered the building as shots rang out. She rounded a corner, identified the shooter, and fired four times. He returned fire and hit her at least twice in the legs and once in the arm. She underwent surgery Friday but is said to be in good condition. It’s unclear how many other responders were present and firing, but Munley’s shots are believed to be the ones that stopped the alleged gunman, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

“She walked up and engaged him,” said Fort Hood commander Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, according to an Associated Press report. Her training taught her that “if you act aggressively to take out a shooter, you will have less fatalities,” he said.

Munley is in stable condition and “very upbeat,” says Medley. “I’ve never seen a person with that kind of injury so upbeat, in fact.”

CSMonitor

When Wrightsville Beach police detective Shaun Appler pulled over a suspected drunk driver in 2000, he couldn’t have foreseen the dangerous situation that was about to ensue.

Thankfully Appler’s partner, Kimberly Munley, was there to save his life.

While Appler was talking to the driver of the vehicle, a third man approached the detective and interjected himself into the discussion. Appler said he asked the third man to leave, when he didn’t, the detective tried to arrest him.

A struggle ensued, and the two men eventually rolled down a hill. When they came to a stop, the man was straddling Appler, reaching for the handgun holstered on the detective’s belt.

Suddenly, Munley appeared, leaped onto the man’s back, yanked him off of Appler and forced him into handcuffs.

At that point, Appler said, he heard the theme to Mighty Mouse playing over in his head: “Here I come to save the day.”

From that time forward, Appler called Munley: “Mighty Mouse.”

Lumina News

Munley, described by neighbor Brooke Beato, as “very petite, with long blonde hair and a strong personality,” was credited by base officials with preventing further carnage by aggressively engaging Hasan as he shot at her. She rounded a corner, took aim at Hasan and brought him down, officials said. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said. [snip]

Munley, who worked as a police officer for five years in North Carolina where her father, Dennis Barbour, once served as mayor of Carolina Beach, is a talented shooter and member of the base’s Special Reaction Team which trains for the possibility of events like Thursday’s shooting rampage.

Time

The police officer who ended the Fort Hood massacre by shooting the suspect is known as the enforcer on her street, a “tough woman” who patrolled her neighborhood and once stopped burglars at her house.

“If you come in, I’m going to shoot,” Kimberly Munley told the would-be intruders last year.

It was Munley who arrived quickly Thursday at the scene of the worst massacre at an Army base in U.S. history, where 13 people were killed. She confronted the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and shot him four times. Munley was wounded in the exchange.

That’s just like her, friends and family say.

“I just felt more protected knowing she was on my street,” neighbor Erin Houston said.

Munley, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, lives on a street where a lot of homes are vacant because so many residents are deployed at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We sleep a lot safer knowing she’s on the block,” said Sgt. William Barbrow, another neighbor.

CNN