A Nashville man who is being called a hero for stopping the gunman behind Sunday’s Waffle House shooting did not escape without injury.
James Shaw Jr., 29, has been dubbed a hero after disarming an active shooter at a Waffle House restaurant in Tennessee on Sunday, April 22. During the ordeal, Shaw suffered severe burns to his hands from grabbing the barrel of the AR-15 used in the shooting as well as a gunshot wound.
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A 29-year-old man saved numerous lives during Antioch Waffle House shooting, police say https://t.co/GYMn6ZG1jr
— Tennessean (@Tennessean) April 22, 2018
This is James Shaw. He’s a hero. His hands are burned severely from grabbing the assault rifle used to kill four people inside a Nashville Waffle House. He likely saved dozens of lives pic.twitter.com/WV7KQlzA2R
— Chris Conte (@chrisconte) April 22, 2018
Shaw told The Tennessean he saw an opportunity to tackle the suspect, 29-year-old Travis Reinking, during the shooting and took it. He tackled Reinking and took his weapon away. The suspect then fled on foot and evaded capture until Monday afternoon.
Shaw, who was grazed by a bullet during the shooting, says he took the chance out of a need to survive.
“I don’t really know, when everyone said that (I was a hero), it feels selfish,” Shaw told The Tennessean. “I was just trying to get myself out. I saw the opportunity and pretty much took it.”
“I don’t know if it has hit me yet as far as witnessing other people dying,” Shaw said. “It’s kind of, it shouldn’t have happened. When I was in the ambulance to hospital I kept thinking that I’m going to wake up and it’s not going to be real. It is something out a movie. I’m OK though, but I hate that it happened.”
Shaw said he did not want to be seen as a hero.
“I did that completely out of a selfish act. I was completely doing it just to save myself,” Shaw said, reports CNN. “I don’t want people to think that I was the Terminator or Superman or anybody like that.”
Shaw was treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and released.
Reinking managed to evade police for nearly 36 hours in the wooded areas of Antioch, Tennessee before eventually being taken into custody on April 23. He has since been booked into the Metro Jail on four murder warrants.
It is reported that Reinking first shot at people outside the Waffle House in Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville, before he went inside at around 3:25 a.m. Sunday. He reportedly used an AR-15 rifle in the shooting and was only wearing a coat.
The victims of the shooting were identified as 29-year-old Taurea C. Sanderlin, 20-year-old Joe R. Perez, 23-year-old Akilah Dasilva and 21-year-old DeEbony Groves. Groves. Groves and Dasilva were college students, while Perez was a local patron and Sanderlin was an employee of the Waffle House.
