Richard Fierro received a phone call from President Joe Biden when he was hailed as a hero for taking down the man responsible for the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting.
The army veteran and his wife and daughter were sitting at a table at the club when a man walked in and opened fire, killing five people and wounding eighteen. Fierro ran towards the shooter, who was later identified as Anderson Lee Aldrich, pulled him down, and beat him with his own gun before police arrived.
He told the New York Times that he did not know what he did. I know I have to kill him.
What Fierro did that night has placed him in a group of people who have been trained to take down attackers. There have been more than 400 situations in which a bystander confronted an active shooter in the country since 2000. A bystander subdued the shooter in 64 of the 249 attacks that ended before police showed up. Fierro was able to stop the shooter and save lives without a gun.
The data was pulled together by the ALERRT Center at Texas State University and the FBI. The director of research at ALERRT says that the chance of a civilian taking down an attacker is 10%. The Department of Homeland Security recommends that civilians try to take down a shooter if they are close by. The situation is more complex if a civilian is armed.
He told Slate in an interview that if people pull out their guns and shoot at each other at the same time it could cause more harm.
The US has recorded more multiple-victim shootings so far this year than it did five years ago.
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