New Year's Eve fireworks: the Ann Leybourne incident

American Handgunner, July-August, 2004 by Massad Ayoob

And she retired after some thirty years as a supervisor, a role model, a superb cop who had helped pave the way for others of her gender to succeed in what had hitherto been a rigidly male-oriented job. By then, Ann Leybourne Biebel had successfully combined the roles of mother and wife into her life and by all accounts was exemplary there, too. Her death from cancer a few months ago triggered many memories among those who knew her along the way. One such was ex-cop Paul Huebl, whom long term American Handgunner readers may remember as the private eye who used his snub-nose S&W Bodyguard .38 revolver to win a gunfight with an attacker who was armed with a Colt .45 automatic. Paul is now involved in television producing in Los Angeles. It was he who dug out the 1973 reports on the Leybourne incident, making this article possible.

When she died, this courageous law enforcement officer was remembered thus in Time magazine. "Died: Ann Leybourne Biebel, 53, retired Chicago cop who, as an off-duty recruit, shot and killed the city's infamous 'Friday night rapist' when he kidnapped her at gunpoint on New Year's Eve in 1973; of cancer; in Muskegon, Michigan."

There are many learning points in this incident, and the Time blurb is as good a place to start as any.

Lessons

Dr. Walter Gorski, the pioneering police psychologist who quantified what he called "post shooting trauma" as a separate and distinct sub-set of post traumatic stress disorder, defined an effect he called the "Mark of Cain" syndrome. This is the sense that people no longer see you as the good parent, the good neighbor, etc.; they see you predominantly as "he or she who killed." This changes the way people treat you, which in turn changes the way you see yourself.

Did Time's obit extol this good person's genuine achievements as a pioneering cop, a great boss, a wonderful morn and beloved spouse, all of which must have been much more important to her? No, they remembered her only as the woman who killed the serial rapist. Shortly after the incident, Leybourne herself told a reporter, "People ask me if I'm the one who killed a man. I think I did what I had to but, it's still a human life."

Even though she was only a "baby cop," Leybourne chastised herself for not having been more alert and seeing the predator sooner. Certainly, too, the purse was not the best or most accessible place to carry her gun. In fairness, however, she was new to the pistol packing game, and in any case, things worked out and allowed her to take her assailant by surprise by a sufficient margin to win the fight.

Have a good gun. Leybourne did. The Colt Detective Special was and is a fine weapon. It was just about that time when Chicago PD became one of the first in the nation to switch from the old, feeble 158 grain round nose lead ammo to the all-lead P semiwadcutter hollowpoint of the same weight that had just been developed by Winchester. It is unclear from the surviving records which round she used. Clearly, her single hit profoundly reduced her opponent's ability to murder her, as hard as he tried. She had a distinct sense he had been severely weakened by that shot, and this may have been the key to her being able to successfully disarm him and continue the fight after he knocked her gun from her hand.