Shot in the Face by a Man With a Crossbow: A Mental Health Call Became a Fight for Survival
West Palm Beach, Fl - Shot in the Face by a Man With a Crossbow: A Mental Health Call Became a Fight for Survival.
Sheriff’s Sergeant Tom Lee survived an almost unimaginable attack. But the physical wound was only one chapter in a 23-year journey through trauma, faith, failure, and redemption.
Hardin County Sheriff’s Sergeant Tom Lee had responded to countless difficult calls during more than two decades in law enforcement.
Read more or listen to the Free Podcast here.
On June 20, 2019, he and a mental health caseworker approached a Texas home believing they were there to help a family in crisis.
Relatives of a 38-year-old man had contacted the sheriff’s office because he was reportedly experiencing a mental health emergency. Lee was serving in the agency’s mental health division—a role that demanded patience, restraint, communication skills, and the ability to recognize when a troubled person might become dangerous.
The assignment began as an effort to help.
Then the man emerged from the home carrying a crossbow.
Without warning, he fired.
The bolt struck Lee in the face, just above his left eye.
It could have killed him instantly. Instead, the bolt miraculously failed to penetrate his skull.
Although seriously wounded, Lee remained in the fight. He drew his service weapon, returned fire, and stopped the threat.
Both men survived.
For Lee, however, physical survival was only the beginning. The ambush became part of a much larger story involving trauma, faith, family, career setbacks, law enforcement service, and the difficult road toward redemption.
That journey became the foundation of his first book, *Scars of the Badge: Faith, Trauma, and Redemption Behind the Thin Blue Line*.
Lee discussed the crossbow attack, his recovery, his career, and the hidden emotional cost of police work during an interview on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast.
A Mental Health Call With a Terrifying Outcome
Calls involving people experiencing mental health crises are among the most complex and unpredictable assignments in law enforcement.
An officer may encounter someone who is frightened, delusional, suicidal, angry, confused, under the influence, or unable to understand what is happening. That person may desperately need treatment while also presenting a danger to family members, clinicians, responding officers, or themselves.
The goal is generally to slow the encounter down, reduce the tension, communicate calmly, and connect the person with appropriate services.
That was the mission when Lee and the caseworker arrived at the residence.
They were not there because the family wanted punishment. They were there because relatives believed someone they loved needed help.
But even a carefully planned crisis response can change without warning.
The 38-year-old man emerged from the home armed with a crossbow and fired at Lee. The bolt struck the sergeant just above his left eye.
There was no opportunity for a lengthy assessment. Lee had been ambushed with a weapon capable of causing catastrophic injury or death.
Despite the devastating impact near his eye, he returned fire. His rounds wounded the attacker and ended the immediate threat.
A call centered on care and intervention had become a deadly-force encounter in seconds.
The incident illustrates a reality frequently lost in short news reports and social media debates: officers responding to mental health emergencies may be trying to help someone while also facing the possibility of sudden violence.
Compassion and caution are not mutually exclusive. On some calls, responders must balance both until the very last second.
Survival Against Extraordinary Odds
Lee’s survival was remarkable.
The crossbow bolt hit him above the left eye but did not penetrate his skull. After receiving medical treatment, he was eventually released from the hospital to continue his recovery.
The man who attacked him also survived. He was airlifted to a regional hospital for treatment of the gunshot wounds he sustained when Lee returned fire.
Authorities later charged him with first-degree felony aggravated assault on a public servant.
On June 23, 2021, a Texas jury found him guilty. He reportedly received a prison sentence of approximately 60 years.
The conviction delivered legal accountability, but no courtroom verdict could erase what happened outside that home.
Lee still had to live with the physical and psychological consequences of being attacked at close range.
The public often sees a photograph of an injured officer, reads a brief update, and moves on to the next headline. The officer and family cannot move forward so quickly.
Recovery may include pain, medical appointments, disrupted sleep, anxiety, anger, intrusive memories, and the unsettling realization that an ordinary workday nearly ended a life.
The visible injury may eventually heal while the emotional effects continue in private.
For many survivors, the conclusion of the incident is only the beginning of the recovery.
Read more or listen to the Free Podcast here.
Before the Crossbow: A Career-Altering Setback
Lee’s law enforcement journey was not a straight line of promotions, achievements, and public praise.
Before joining the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office, he worked for a university police department. That job ended following a controversy involving the speed of a vehicle pursuit initiated during a traffic stop.
He was fired.
Losing a police position can represent far more than the loss of a paycheck. For many officers, law enforcement becomes intertwined with identity, purpose, friendships, and self-worth.
The badge may define how they see themselves and how others see them.
Lee’s termination could have ended his career. It could also have permanently shaped the way he viewed his own value.
Instead, it became part of a longer story about mistakes, consequences, perseverance, and second chances.
That chapter adds important context to *Scars of the Badge*. The book is not presented as the story of a flawless officer. Its strength comes from a more honest premise: wearing a badge does not protect someone from failure, trauma, doubt, or the need for redemption.
Lee’s earlier firing and the later crossbow ambush were radically different events, but both forced him to confront uncertainty about his future.
One threatened his professional identity.
The other threatened his life.
Moving forward from either experience required more than physical toughness.
The Emotional Weight Behind the Badge
During more than 23 years in law enforcement, Lee responded to violence, tragedy, crisis, and human suffering.
Every difficult call carried the potential to leave a mark.
Police officers are expected to remain composed while other people are experiencing the worst moments of their lives. They encounter grieving families, injured children, fatal crashes, suicides, abuse, addiction, mental illness, and violent offenders.
They may be threatened, assaulted, shot at, or forced to use deadly force.
Then they are expected to complete the report, clear the call, and remain prepared for whatever happens next.
The accumulated effects are not always obvious.
An officer may appear calm at work while becoming emotionally distant at home. Sleep may become difficult. Patience may shorten. A sound, smell, location, or routine assignment may trigger the memory of an earlier tragedy.
Lee’s experience provided an especially vivid example of that burden.
Being shot in the face with a crossbow was not merely an unusual headline. It was an event that affected his body, mind, faith, family, and understanding of service.
That truth extends far beyond one Texas sergeant.
Police officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, corrections officers, dispatchers, military veterans, and other first responders may survive an attack or traumatic event while struggling with its effects for years.
The uniform does not make someone immune to trauma.
In some cases, it makes admitting the pain even more difficult.
Read more or listen to the Free Podcast here.
Writing Scars of the Badge in Five Weeks
Lee eventually transformed his experiences into Scars of the Badge: Faith, Trauma, and Redemption Behind the Thin Blue Line.
The memoir provides a candid examination of the emotional, psychological, and spiritual challenges that can accompany a law enforcement career. It explores the difficulty of repeatedly responding to violence and tragedy while trying to remain present for family, preserve faith, and continue serving the public.
The writing process moved with surprising speed.
Lee said it took him only five weeks to write the book.
That does not mean the story was created in five weeks. The experiences behind it had been accumulating for decades.
The words may have reached the page in a little more than a month, but the material was shaped by years of service, mistakes, dangerous encounters, private struggles, and personal reflection.
The crossbow attack is a central part of the memoir, but the book extends beyond that single moment. It examines what happens when the uniform comes home with the officer and the demands of police work begin affecting relationships, beliefs, emotions, and identity.
The story contains an extraordinary act of violence, but its deeper themes are universal: failure, fear, perseverance, faith, forgiveness, and the search for meaning after trauma.
Why the Title Matters
The phrase “scars of the badge” describes far more than the wound above Lee’s left eye.
Some scars are physical and immediately visible.
Others appear as nightmares, anxiety, strained relationships, spiritual uncertainty, or memories that refuse to remain in the past.
The badge represents authority, duty, and public service. It can also carry personal costs that most people never see.
Lee’s story challenges the idea that courage means remaining unaffected by trauma.
Real courage may involve acknowledging the wound.
It may mean asking difficult questions, seeking help, reconnecting with faith, repairing relationships, and refusing to let the worst event become the final chapter.
Redemption is equally important to Lee’s story.
After a career setback, he rebuilt his place in law enforcement. Years later, after surviving the crossbow attack, he again faced the question of what should come next.
Redemption did not erase his past. It allowed him to use painful experiences to create something that might help other people.
The Complicated Reality of Mental Health Calls
The attack also highlights the difficult role law enforcement officers and crisis workers play during mental health emergencies.
The man’s family requested assistance. Lee responded as part of a mental health unit and was accompanied by a caseworker.
The purpose of the visit was intervention, not punishment.
Yet the situation became violent.
That does not mean everyone living with mental illness should be viewed as dangerous. Most people experiencing mental health challenges are not violent.
It does mean that crisis responders must sometimes balance compassion, de-escalation, treatment needs, family concerns, and personal safety in circumstances that can shift rapidly.
Lee’s case demonstrates why cooperation among law enforcement agencies, clinicians, crisis workers, families, and community services is essential.
It also shows why responders need appropriate training, communication tools, safety procedures, and adequate resources.
No system, however, can eliminate every danger.
The crossbow ambush was a brutal reminder of that limitation.
Read more or listen to the Free Podcast here.
Looking Beyond the Headline
Tom Lee could easily be remembered only as the Texas law enforcement officer who was shot in the face by a man with a crossbow.
That description is accurate, but incomplete.
He is also an officer who endured a career-altering setback and found a way forward.
He is a mental health liaison sergeant who responded to help a family and nearly lost his life.
He is a survivor who remained capable of defending himself after being struck above the eye with a crossbow bolt.
He is an author who transformed decades of pain, service, faith, and reflection into a memoir written in five weeks.
Most importantly, his story presents a question that reaches far beyond law enforcement:
What will a person do with the scars left by failure and trauma?
Lee chose to speak openly about his.
Scars of the Badge: Faith, Trauma, and Redemption Behind the Thin Blue Line does not present survival as a clean ending. It portrays recovery as a continuing process shaped by accountability, family, faith, and the willingness to confront what the badge can cost.
His physical wound became visible evidence of an almost unimaginable attack.
His book reveals the wounds no photograph could capture.
The full interview with Hardin County Sheriff’s Sergeant Tom Lee is featured on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast. The episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartradio and other major podcast platforms, with additional content shared on Facebook, Instagram, and social media.
The crossbow attack lasted only moments.
The story of survival, trauma, faith, and redemption is still being written.
If this story affected you, please recommend and share it. Doing so may help it reach a police officer, first responder, veteran, survivor, or family member who needs to know that trauma does not have to write the final chapter.
Attributions
Scars of the Badge: Faith, Trauma and Redemption Behind the Thin Blue Line
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