"I know that might not be a popular thing, but I'm really honest. "I'll say it again: I didn't really fight that man to save everybody else," Shaw said at Sunday's news conference.
"So I don't know if I picked him up and just slung him with me out the door, but I knew I needed to get out the door."Īfter that, Shaw recalled that he went back to check on his friend to see if he had been shot. So you have to come with me,'" Shaw said. "He was in the middle of the door, and I was like, 'You're still in the way. There was just one problem: The gunman was still there. But he recalled that once the immediate threat was over, he just wanted to get out of the restaurant. Some of the details of the chaotic and violent situation are a blur, Shaw said. And when he finally succeeded, he threw it over the restaurant's counter. The only thing that mattered, he said, was to get the gun away. But a couple of bullet holes, you might not be able to walk away from that." "I can walk away from a burned hand and a man's nudity. "He was also naked, and that was the last thing on my mind," Shaw said. Shaw said that at the time, his own wounds and the gunman's strange appearance didn't matter. "And I was like, 'I'm just trying to live.' " And then after I got the gun, he was just like - he acted like I was in the wrong," Shaw said. "He was cursing me, because, you know, I was taking his gun from him. The suspect, Travis Reinking, was captured Monday afternoon after an intense manhunt.
Three of the victims died at the scene, and a fourth died at the hospital. Shaw was speaking at a news conference convened by city leaders after the late-night attack, in which six people were shot in Antioch, Tenn., on the outskirts of Nashville. "I think anybody could've did what I did if they're just pushed in that kind of cage," Shaw said, "and you have to either react or you're going to, you know, fold."
Shaw insists he acted only to save himself - but many others are calling him a hero for stopping the violence. I'm just a regular person," said James Shaw Jr., who police say saved lives by disarming a man who opened fire Sunday at a Waffle House in Tennessee. He spoke at a news conference with law enforcement officials on Sunday. "I think anybody could've did what I did," said James Shaw Jr., who disarmed a gunman at a Nashville-area Waffle House, where four people were killed.