ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - By now, many people across the nation who was carefully monitoring the mass shootings incident in Kansas City, Missouri following the Chiefs Super Bowl Parade saw a video of Chiefs fans tackling a suspected parade shooter as he was running through the crowd following Wednesday's tragic events.
Paul Contreras was one of the men who helped tackled the suspected shooter Wednesday afternoon. Contreras was at the parade alongside his three daughters when chaos broke out after the celebrations.
Contreras, who is from Omaha, Nebraska, alongside one of his daughters Alyssa March-Contreras, joined the 'Chris and Amy' Show on KMOX in St. Louis to discuss the tragic events.
"Everything felt like it happened so fast," said Paul Contreras Thursday. "The ceremony was over, we were walking to our vehicle with everybody else. Then we hear 'pop pop pop pop pop' which sounded to us like fireworks and about 30 seconds later, here comes two kids that was running as fast as they can. Then comes so many cops chasing these two men."
Paul Contreras says the bridge he and other fans were heading to got closed off by police, which led to one of the suspects getting caught while another ran back to Contreras direction.
"Out of nowhere, I hear somebody screaming at the top of his lungs 'stop this kid, stop this young man.'" said Contreras. "I had the perfect angle and I tackled him. And as I'm in the process of tackling him, his gun falls out of his sleeve, his hand or whatever."
Contreras says as soon as he saw that gun, he was thinking the teen he tackled was potentially carrying another one on him.
"I needed to keep him on the ground as much as I can and another good Samaritan came over and helped hold him around his waist," said Contreras. "We're just putting our weight on him to keep him down."
Police eventually relieved Contreras and the other Samaritan of the suspect, and took the suspect and the weapon.
Contreras felt like it took minutes for police to come take the suspect after holding the suspect down with another fan.
"As much as I was fighting to keep him down, (the suspect) was fighting to get away," said Contreras. "My whole mindset was to keep him down until law enforcement got there."
Contreras said it was pure instinct for him to tackle the suspect, even though he had no military or police background.
"If you had to think about it, you shouldn't do it," said Contreras. "To me it was just a reaction. I was in the moment and I did what I did."