Richard M. Fierro, a 15-year military veteran, and his family were at the Colorado Springs nightclub when the shooter opened fire. “I simply felt I had to take him down,” he said.
Richard M. Fierro was watching a drag show with his wife, daughter, and friends at a table in Bar Q on Saturday when a fast burst of gunfire ripped through the room.
Immediately, instincts learned over four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan surfaced. He urged himself to protect his people and fight back.
According to military records, Mr. Fierro, 45, spent 15 years as an Army officer and retired as a major in 2013.
He described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman, and beating him with the gunman’s own gun in an interview on Monday at his home, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries.
“I don’t know precisely what I did, I simply went into fighting mode,” Mr. Fierro remarked, shaking his head. He stood on his driveway, an American flag fluttering in the cold air. “All I know is that I have to kill him before he kills us,” stated the speaker.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, is being held by police on suspicion of killing five people and injuring 18 others following a brief rampage at the club. According to officials, if the bar patrons had not intervened, the death toll would have been far higher.
Mr. Fierro was praised by Mayor John Suthers, who stated that “he saved a lot of lives.” The mayor stated that he was pleased by Mr. Fierro’s humility after conversing with him. “I’ve never met somebody who did such big things and was so humble about it.”
The battle veteran and his wife, Jess, went to see one of their daughter’s friends perform a drag act alongside Kassandra, her longtime boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance, and two family friends.
Mr. Fierro was having a good time at the drag show because it was his first time there. He’d been in the Army for 15 years, and now that he was a civilian and a parent, he was enjoying the opportunity to see one of his daughter’s old high school friends play.
“These kids want to live that life, want to have a good time,” he said as he described the night. They can do whatever they want, which is exactly what I campaigned for, so I’m overjoyed.
Mr. Fierro was focusing on strengthening his social skills. He’d been shot at, seen his platoon’s trucks damaged by roadside bombs, and lost friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was awarded the Bronze Star twice.
Both the past and the present were affected by the wars. There are some things he would always remember.
Crowds worried him for a long time after he returned home. He was forced to be cautious. In restaurants, he sat against the wall, his back to the door. Despite his best attempts, a part of him was always ready to attack, like a persistent itch.
He was far too suspicious and often angered. His daughter and wife suffered the most. He was working on it.
Medicine, as well as psychological treatment, were supplied. He took all firearms from the house. He grew a big, white beard and long hair to separate himself from his days as a soldier.
He was friendly with his daughter and her long-term boyfriend, and he and his wife ran a successful local brewery called Atrevida Beer Co. He recognized that fight will always be with him.
But he wasn’t even thinking about war that night at Club Q. The ladies were dancing around. He was cracking jokes with his friends. Then the gunshots started.
There were rapid flashes and the sound of small-arms fire near the front door. Mr. Fierro was all too aware of it. He fell to the ground without looking back, dragging his friend with him.
Shots blasted the bar, smashing glasses and breaking bottles. Screams could be heard. Looking up, Mr. Fierro noticed a man carrying a gun that resembled the one he had used in Iraq and weighed well over 300 pounds.
The man was dressed in body armor. The attacker was making his way through the pub toward a door that led to a terrace where many people had fled.
Long-suppressed inclinations of a platoon commander resurfaced. He ran across the room, leaped on top of the shooter, and dragged him down by the handle on the back of his body armor.
“Was he going to shoo me? Mr. Fierro said, “I’m not sure.” “I just knew I had to put him down.”
The two collapsed on the floor. The shooter’s military-style weapon clanged a few feet away. When Mr. Fierro observed the gunman approaching with a gun in his other hand, he prepared to fight.
“I just started pounding him in the head, over and again, and pulled the gun out of his hand,” Mr. Fierro stated.
Mr. Fierro began screaming commands at the victim while holding him down and striking him in the head with the pistol. He yelled at another clubgoer, telling him to take the gun and kick the shooter in the face while yelling cuss words.
Mr. Fierro said that he gave a drag performer the instruction to kick the assailant with her high heels while she was walking by.
“The bulk of the time in combat, very little happens, but that mad minute, that mad minute, is when you are challenged.” “It becomes a habit,” he observed.
“I have no idea how I got the gun away from that person.” ” Even though I’m just a fat old vet, I recognized I needed to do something.”
According to Mr. Fierro, when police arrived a few minutes later, the gunman was no longer resisting. Mr. Fierro claimed he was frightened he had killed him.
He said that he had borrowed tourniquets from a rookie cop and used them on his wounded friends. He claimed he tried to speak quietly to them while working and tell them that everything was alright.
He was tackled as he was about to approach his wife and daughter who were standing at the room’s edge.
Officers rushed into the chaotic scene, unsure of his threat level, and observed a man with a revolver who was covered in blood. He was handcuffed and confined to the back of the police car for what seemed like an eternity. He yelled and pleaded to be released so he could see his family.
He was eventually released. He went to the hospital with his wife and daughter, who had just minor injuries. His friends were present at the moment and remain in significantly worse condition.
Everyone had survived. But his daughter’s lover was nowhere to be found. They’d lost him in the chaos. As they drove back to the club, they circled well-known streets in an attempt to find him. But no luck.
His life had been taken by the shooting.
Mr. Fierro, he claimed, cried while holding his daughter when he heard.
He cried, partly because of what he feared. The family of the deceased and the victims of the killings had now lived through war, just as he had. They, like him and many of his wartime comrades, would struggle.
They would be tormented between the desire to forget and the need to always remember, they would ache from unwarranted vigilance, they would lash out in wrath, and they would never be able to cope with fear.
