Vet who took down alleged club shooter: ‘I reached up and did what I had to do’

Veteran Richard Fierro, who witnesses say disarmed the alleged Club Q shooter in Colorado Springs, Colo., told CNN on Monday that he snapped into combat mode and “did what I had to do” when he and his family came under fire.

“I’m protecting my family. And I reached up and I did what I had to do,” Fierro, who says his wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend were at the club, told CNN anchor John Berman.

Fierro said that the family was at the Colorado Springs LGBTQ club to watch a drag show. He says he began treating the wounded shortly after taking down the alleged gunman.

The shooting left five dead and 18 wounded. Suspected shooter Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, faces murder and hate crime charges after allegedly firing a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle at patrons in the nightclub.

“You trained to do that in combat, not out for a night on the town,” Berman said to Fierro during the interview.

The veteran responded: “Yeah, but it lives in you.”

“If you actually do this stuff, it’s in you. I was proud to be a soldier,” he continued.

However, Fierro, who said he left the military because it was “too much,” called himself a “normal guy” and said that the shooting was “not about me.”

“Honestly, I don’t care about myself in that moment. I cared about everybody that was around me and I cared especially about my family,” he said.

“As soon as I got done with that guy and the cop came in, I went across the room and started first aid with my friend who was shot in the chest and the legs in the arms.”

Fierro cried as he recalled the deaths of five people shot at the nightclub, including his daughter’s boyfriend.

“I told him while I was hitting him, I said ‘I’m going to f—— kill you, man, because you tried to kill my friends.’ My family was in there. My little girl was in there,” he said through tears.

The father and husband previously told The New York Times that he used his combat training to respond to the shooting.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Fierro said. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”