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PAWTUCKET, R.I. (WHDH) - A man police credit with wrestling the gun away from the gunman who opened fire at a hockey rink in Pawtucket Monday spoke to 7NEWS Tuesday, describing the intense moments he helped take the shooter down.
“I was watching the game, and next thing you know I heard two loud pops, and it sounded like balloons because of the echo or something,” explained Michael Black, who helped take down Robert Dorgan, the gunman. “I kind of looked around somebody, and I saw the gun. When I saw the gun I didn’t even look at my wife, I just said run. Run! And her and her friend, a group of her friends just started running toward the exit.”
Black continued, “When I was able to look directly at the shooter, I stood up and jumped off and went for the gun. And I kind of tackled and hit into him also. And I had the gun but when I grabbed it, I got stitches in my hand but, my hand went into the slide mechanism of the gun. So it was stuck in there…and he looked like he was trying to pull the trigger but nothing was happening. And we wrestled the gun away. He was strong, there was no question he was strong. And he kind of pushed me off, and as he got back up, three phenomenal people grabbed him and tried to put him in a chokehold. That allowed me to get up and as they pushed him he ended up falling between the rafters.”
Black said his thoughts are with the family who was affected by this tragedy.
“A family was destroyed for no reason,” he said. “They were very, very happy. Watching them smiling, laughing. It was a whole group of them, it was the couple, it was the mother-in-law, it was the son, it was the daughter, and how quickly that changed.”
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