Jay Dobyns

Jay Anthony "Jaybird" or "Bird" Dobyns (born July 24, 1961) is a retired Special Agent and veteran undercover operative with the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), New York Times Best-Selling author, public speaker, high school football coach, and University of Arizona adjunct professor.

Dobyns was born in Hammond, Indiana in 1961, but was raised in Tucson, Arizona.

He was a standout athlete in several sports at Sahuaro High School before attending the University of Arizona to play football.

He became an All-Pacific-10 conference wide receiver, College Football All-American Candidate at Wide Receiver and was named to Arizona Wildcats "All-Century" football team.

Dobyns is still ranked as one of the best receivers in the history of the Arizona Wildcats.

Dobyns graduated in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in public administration.

He is a member of the Sahuaro High School and Pima County Sports Hall of Fame.

After college he had tryouts in the Canadian Football League (1985) and United States Football League (1986) before becoming a federal law enforcement agent.

Dobyns became a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in 1987.

Less than a week after beginning operational duty, he was taken hostage at gunpoint in the Tucson desert while serving an arrest warrant on a convicted felon who was recently released from prison.

The suspect forced Dobyns into the driver seat of the officers' undercover car, which was immediately surrounded by the other agents with guns drawn.

During a brief standoff, the agitated gunman repeatedly screamed at Dobyns to drive away.

Dobyns told Sher and Marsden for their book Angels Of Death that he was thinking at the time: "This guy is probably going to shoot me one way or the other. I'd rather have him shoot me with my people around me versus driving me twenty miles out into the desert and killing me there".

When Dobyns intentionally pulled the car keys from the ignition and dropped them to the floor, the assailant fired a single .38 caliber pistol bullet into Dobyns' lung, which exited his upper chest.

The other ATF agents instantly opened fire from both sides of the car, killing the gunman.

As Dobyns lay bleeding on the floor of the car, he recalled: "I was lying in the desert thinking, I got shot before I even got my first paycheque! You know what, I'm going to fuckin' die. I have been on the job a week and I'm going to die in this fuckin' trailer park".

In 1992, another ATF agent, Carols Canino, was involved in a shoot-out in Los Angeles that left a man dead.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Canino suffered from depression and self-doubt.

Dobyns was sent to Los Angeles to mentor Canino and helped recover from his depression.

Dobyns said of his mentoring: "We take care of each other because we know how quickly the tables can turn and the counsellor could be on the wrong end of a bullet and be the victim. Carlos is a brave, brave man".

Canino later served with Dobyns on Operation Black Biscuit.

In the fall of 1999, Bayless and Dobyns went undercover in Colorado in an operation against an outlaw biker gang, the Sons of Silence.

Both agents went about in an ostentatious fashion visiting bars wearing bikers vests with the patch of the Unforgiven Motorcycle Club, a fake biker gang, in an attempt to provoke a reaction from the Sons of Silence who saw bikers from a rival gang wearing their patches on their territory as a threat.

Both Bayless and Dobyns wore wires that recorded the threats from the Sons of Silence who told them that to continue wearing the patches of the Unforgiven in their area would mean death, which was intended to provide evidence that could be used in a courtroom that the Sons of Silence used violence and threats routinely.

In one bar, Dobyns and Bayless were confronted by Douglas Luckett of the Sons of Silence, a huge 6'9 man who weighted 300 pounds.

Luckett aggressively told the undercover policemen: "Hey, you guys can't wear that shit around here!"

In 2012, Dobyns was named the "#1 Badass Arizona football player in history" by the Tucson Citizen newspaper.

Critically wounded, Dobyns was rushed to a Tucson hospital, where Dr. Richard Carmona, who later became the 17th United States Surgeon General, performed emergency trauma surgery that saved Dobyns' life.

Despite the severity of his wounds, Dobyns refused disability retirement and returned to duty within months of the shooting.

The publicity generated by the incident was felt to make Dobyns unsuitable for undercover work, which he insisted on continuing as he told his supervisor about his offer of a desk job: "Absolutely not. I didn't freaking come here to sit behind a desk and sit on a phone and make my case by using a fax machine and a computer".

Dobyns was transferred to Chicago.

One ATF agent who worked with Dobyns in Chicago, Chris Bayless, told Sher and Marsden: "Jay is probably one of the best undercover guys, bar none. What makes you good is being able to keep your shit together when everything around you is just spiraling out of control".

Dobyns and Bayless worked undercover on the South side of Chicago, posing as gunrunners to various gang members.

During a botched bust when Dobyns and Bayless attempted to arrest a group of gangsters for trying to buy an illegal machine gun, the suspects fled in their automobile while the two ATF agents tried to block the street.

The gangster sped forward in their car while one of them rolled down a window and fired two shots.

Dobyns shot the driver of the car in the shoulder, but was run over.

Bayless recalled: "He flips up in the air, his shoes go flying off. I could see his eyes go back in his head. I thought he was dead...Jay flew into the air, but he had enough sense to catch himself, twist his body around and fire another round at the car before he hit the ground".

Dobyns hit the glass of the front window of the car head first and both of his kneecaps were blown out of their sockets.

Bayless arrested the suspects shortly afterwards.

Bayless told Sher and Marsden about his partner: "This was a guy who had been taken hostage and shot back in Arizona. Then he comes here and gets run over and almost shot and killed a second time. He still sucks it up and goes out there everyday and works harder than anybody else I know".