Dad who tackled gunman at Chiefs rally reflects on heroic actions that day
BELLEVUE, NE – Some memories are so clear, like they happened just yesterday.
“I don’t know if he tried to bite me or just tried to scratch me with his hand,” said Paul Contreras. “I had him wrapped up and I couldn’t let him, I couldn’t let my hands go.”
Feb. 14, 2024, will always be one of those instances for Paul Contreras. It began as a day to celebrate. It ended with horror and then relief.
“It was just a great time up until that time,” Contreras said of the Super Bowl rally. Kansas City hosted a Super Bowl celebration for his lifelong favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who had just been crowned back-to-back Super Bowl champions.
“It’s a great feeling,” he said. “As a fan, you know, you’re on cloud nine. Ride it out as long as you can.”
Paul and his three daughters took the ride from Omaha to Kansas City to the parade and rally outside Union Station.
“Just to see everybody there to support the Chiefs in their way, it was honestly really cool to be a part of that,” said Alyssa Marsh Contreras.
“[I] told my daughter ‘Just soak it in and enjoy it, you don’t know when the Chiefs are going to win again,‘” said Contreras.
Just minutes after the Chiefs finished speaking to the thousands of fans who gathered in front of the station and on the hill up to the National World War War Museum and Memorial, shots rang out.
“As we were walking back to the car, we just hear pop, pop, pop, pop!” said Alyssa.
But the Contreras family did not suspect gunfire.
“Just seemed like fireworks because we’re at a celebration,” Paul said. “We’re at a parade, you know?”
They say multiple young men run through crowds of people as the shooting continued. In the midst of the chaos, a man ran directly at Paul.
“There’s this gentleman on the bridge,” explained Contreras. “At the top of his lungs, he’s just screaming ‘Stop this guy, stop this guy! Somebody stop this guy! Tackle him!”
Contreras reacted without even thinking, and before he knew it, he had tackled someone whom he only now knows was one of the shooting suspects.
“The next thing you know, I’m on the ground with this gentleman,” Paul said. “I got him face down, belly down, wrapped up arm to arm.”
That’s when it turned into a fight for life.
“When I was taking him down, my head went down before we rolled and I see this weapon hit the ground,” said Contreras. “I’m holding him down as best as I can, fighting to keep him down. He was fighting to get away and I’m just like ‘I can’t lose this fight.‘”
He didn’t.
Alyssa captured the moments as the police arrested one of three juveniles charged in the shooting.
((Insert Alyssa’s video here))
That moment in time turned into a defining moment for Paul. He is now the man who tackled a suspect, potentially saving more lives and being hailed by the public as a hero.
Paul doesn’t see it that way.
“I did what I did, that’s what it comes down to,” said Paul as he choked back tears. “I was there with my three daughters, I would think any parent, any mother or father would have did what I did. We live in a society like that. It’s sad we lost one life, and that’s one too many.”
It is a memory the Contreras family would rather forget.
“I’m here, my kids are here. Thank God,” said Contreras.
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