I am all full of admiration for that man. Hero sounds so trite…
Maddow was on the edge of losing it.
Another account of what happened
CNN 21 Nov 2022
What we know about the Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub shooting
-
The former Army major told CNN he saw the gunman headed toward a patio so he ran over, pulled him down and they both went for the gun, which Fierro described as an “AR.” The gun went flying.
-
Fierro said a young man jumped in and they both pulled the shooter down and the young man ended up near the gunman’s head and the gun. Fierro said he told the young man to push the gun away while he wrestled away the shooter’s pistol and started beating him.
-
“I told him I was going to kill him,” he told CNN, adding he yelled at the other man to kick the gunman.
-
Fierro said he didn’t know the young man’s name, but authorities identified him as Thomas James.
I wonder if the shooter was conscious when taken to the hospital…
The WaPo article goes on to say that when the guy kicking the shooter tired, Fierro asked a drag queen to kick him, and the drag queen kicked the guy with their high heels.
The shooter may be in very bad shape physically.
Unquestionably the shooter is in bad shape - he wasn’t able to make his first court appearance due to his physical condition, and given that the authorities will bandage people up like a mummy and cuff them to a wheelchair to get them to court yeah, he’s effed up.
Frankly, the shooter is lucky he’s not dead and if members of the crowd HAD beaten him to death I would call it self-defense.
A few take-aways:
-
“Gay” and “queer” is not “weak” or “cowardly”
-
LGBTQ+ people have cishet allies who will come to their defense.
-
A gun is a formidable weapon, but it’s not an instant “I win” when you’re vastly outnumbered.
-
Don’t threaten harm Mr. Fierro’s family or friends, or really anyone around him.
Without a doubt. I just hope the people who beat him aren’t haunted by having done so.
Brief CNN interview with Richard Fierro:
It occurs to me that Fierro had two lucky escapes. Fierro was arrested after the attack, presumably as a potential accomplice.
They could easily have shot him during the confusion.
We tend to suspend events like this in time and analyze them to death. The reality is that it’s a “bang-bang” (literally & figuratively) event to which people have an immediate REACTION, which means action without thought. That reaction in the overwhelming number of cases is flight, but the reality is that no one can come remotely close to outrunning a bullet that is traveling around 2800 feet per second.
Our hero, however, was an exception. He saw an opportunity to reach the offender and take him down. Once down, the offender was at a marked disadvantage because body armor, though very effective against bullets, is cumbersome and restrictive in hand to hand combat. Based on real time and real human reactions, I can’t envision a better outcome than the one that occurred.
And apparently has a handle on the back somebody can grab?
Plus, it is quoted that the guy was “at least 300 pounds”. Fat guy in armor was probably like a turtle on its back once he hit the ground.
It’s not unknown for police coming upon a scene of violence to arrest everyone in sight and sort them out later, when there is no longer a possibility of injury or death.
Colorado Springs shooter was arrested last year, but all charges were dropped. Sheriff refused to apply red-flag law to his case. Sheriff suddenly not talking about the case or the law.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
And the guy who stopped the attack?
Badasses want to be him when they grow up.
It’s there so that if you’re wounded, your buddies can drag you to safety. Looks like it’s pretty common on tactical vests.
Update on the shooter:
… and more.
ETA: Yes, I cited the NY Post, but there are other, perhaps more ‘credible’ outlets reporting effectively the same things.
The drag performer known as Del Lusional reported on Twitter that the person who stomped on the shooter with her stiletto was not a drag queen as originally reported, but in fact a trans woman.
Good for her and I hope she had strong legs and sturdy spike heels so they didn’t fall apart after the first couple of kicks.
I had heard early on that a second person was taken into custody, so this must have been what happened.
At the Tucson shooting, the one which left Gabby Giffords disabled, a bystander who had a legal concealed weapon almost shot the wrong person, because he saw a man holding a gun, but he did not draw his own gun because he wasn’t 150% sure this man was the shooter. And sure enough, he wasn’t; the man holding the gun had wrestled it from the shooter, and was one of the people pinning him to the ground.
We shouldn’t need to have people like those who joined in the takedown around, but we are glad we have them. How terrible that Mr. Fierro lost one of his own (daughter’s boyfriend) in the attack, and likely that the others who helped may also have someone close among either the dead or hurt.
The attacker probably expected to just rampage through unimpeded until the police arrived and then maybe go down in a suicide-by-cop blaze. Did not get the satisfaction.
Wow - close call.