PENSACOLA, Fla. – As a gunman went on a shooting spree Friday inside a Naval Air Station Pensacola training building, Lucy Beavin said she was at home with her two children when she received a disturbing call from her husband.
Ren Beavin works on the base as a reservist and civilian contractor. Lucy Beavin remembered the first words out of her husband’s mouth.
“'Put your mom on the phone. I love you. I love them. There’s an active shooter on base. I just really love you guys.' That was it," she said.
The call ended, and Beavin’s husband went to take cover. After an hour of trying to reach her husband via text, she finally got a reply.
“I got the response, ‘Yes. I’m OK,'” she said.
Beavin said she’ll never forget the moment she and her husband reunited.
“It was like meeting him all over again,” Beavin said. "You say every possible apology you can -- I was not nice this morning, to, I didn’t tell how much I love you enough today.”
People who were waiting to get on the base had no idea what was happening. News4Jax spoke with Shannon Jones over the phone. Her son works on the base.
Jones said her son was at the front gate when he started noticing law enforcement officers storming the base, and he then called her because he knew something wasn’t right.
“We could hear them telling people to take shelter over the intercom,” Jones said. "That’s when my son was telling me, ‘They’re telling us to get on our floorboard.’ I said, ‘Can you turn around and go home?’ and he said, ‘No, we’re all stuck here. If something happens, we’re in trouble.’ I said, ‘Well, you got four-wheel drive. Go through the ditch,’ and that’s just what he did.”
The shooting left four people dead, including the attacker. Eleven people were shot, two of whom were Escambia County deputies who were expected to survive.
“It’s just awful. My heart goes out to everybody involved," Jones said. "Everybody is in shock, and for it to happen in Pensacola -- nothing happens here.”