Source: Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images / Getty
A deadly shooting at a gay club in Colorado Springs over the weekend left 5 dead and 18 injured. The New York Times tells the story of the hero who stopped the massacre:
Richard M. Fierro was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub and instincts forged during four combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself, protect your people.
In an interview at his house on Monday, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who spent 15 years as an Army officer and left as a major in 2013, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.
“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head as he stood in his driveway, an American flag hanging limp in the freezing air. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”
Meanwhile, the NY Post reports on the suspect’s background of abuse:
A YouTube channel under his original name, Nick Brink, was started in 2010, when he would have been 10, the Washington Post said.
It has 416 subscribers despite appearing to have only posted one video two years later — a profanity-laden, offensive cartoon titled, “Asian homosexual gets molested by floating piece of f—le.” It mainly features characters dropping f-bombs.
When he was 15, Brink became a target of what the DC outlet described as “a particularly vicious bout of online bullying.”
A Wikipedia-like website was created with his name, photos and online aliases, along with a fictitious biography riddled with insults and ridicule, the paper said, without identifying the site.
It was not clear why he was targeted — but he soon legally changed his name to the one he was arrested under for allegedly shooting dead five people and injuring 18 others in Club Q in Colorado Springs late Saturday.
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