1. Survivors remember deadly Downtown Tyler gun battle
2. Courts reporter remembers rapid fire

The scanner suddenly roared to life with emergency traffic describing a shooting at the Smith County Courthouse, but the initial report was that a shooter was on the roof of the building.

Without thought, I grabbed my coat and sprinted out of the newspaper’s front door on West Erwin and ran toward the courthouse.

The gunshots were ringing through the downtown area.

It was not until I reached the T.B. Fountain Plaza that I thought about what I had last heard on the scanner.

“There’s a shooter on the roof.”

Suddenly the realization hit me and I began to think about finding cover.

Then the gunfire ceased and I saw people running to the east side of the courthouse.

As I rounded the corner on Erwin and Spring Street, I saw a deputy on the ground being treated, a man dead on the street in front of Levine’s Store and a man screaming on the courthouse steps holding his leg.

What I didn’t see was the man’s mother next to him dead on the courthouse steps.

As I and a photographer raced to the scene where the shooter had been shot and killed on East Gentry Parkway, I had a moment to catch my breath, but it would be days before it all sank in.

I and hundreds of others had experienced an event most never see in the lives.

I know where I was and I will never forget Feb. 24, 2005.