The Chiefs fan who tackled one of the suspected shooters at Wednesday’s Super Bowl rally continues to get national attention as a good Samaritan.
A viral video appears to show an alleged gunman sprinting through the crowd when a man suddenly tackled him. The gunman briefly got up before a second man tackled him back to the ground. That’s when the first man again pounced on the suspected gunman. The two heroic men laid on top of the alleged shooter until police arrived seconds later.
Trey Filter was the man who first tackled the man. His wife, Casey, then secured the gun.
“One guy was hollering and saying, you know, ‘Stop him, catch him,’ you know, ‘tackle him.’ And he was just running,” Filter said. “And out of nowhere I heard that guy hollering, so I’m just like, ‘OK, well, I’m right here.’ and I just, I never think about it — it was just a reaction.
“I and another Good Samaritan did, and we held him down. And it seemed like forever but , it was probably like 30 seconds holding him down. And me and the other gentleman are hollering, ‘Where’s the cops?’”
Filter, who lives in Wichita, took his kids out of school to attend the parade.
“I literally just wanted to get some good points in my kids,” he said. “I felt bad for taking them out of school, but it’s a unique situation, we’re in Kansas. ‘Let’s go to this thing.’ We went last year. I just wanted some dad points. I’m really glad we’re not in the other boat that those people are in.”
When it was all over, he grabbed his baseball cap and they headed toward their car. He remembers that he got congratulatory “attaboys” along the way, but he did not think much of it: “I felt like I had just been in a fight.”
Filter, who owns an asphalt company, was hailed as a hero on social media. “A #Chiefs fan risked his life to tackle one of the shooters and prevent anyone else from being harmed. Absolutely heroic,” one person wrote.
The individual killed at the parade was identified as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two who worked as a DJ in the area and who was described by friends as a devout Catholic and devoted mom. At least 22 others were injured in the incident.
Kansas City Police on Thursday said that the shooting stemmed from a personal altercation betweens several people. The two individuals currently being held without bond are both minors.
“The two juveniles are currently being held in custody while we work with juvenile prosecutors to review investigative findings and determine applicable charges,” police said in a statement. “The juvenile court system determines the custody status of all juvenile arrests.”
A online petition is urging that Filter and the other bystander to get Super Bowl rings. He laughed at the idea.
“I’m sure there were a thousand other men there that would have done it,” he said.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice