Club Q hero Richard Fierro honored by American Red Cross: "Everyone in there that night was a hero"
It was November 2022, when a gunman opened fire inside Club Q, an LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs. Five people tragically lost their lives. Among those at the club that night was Richard Fierro, an Army veteran who tackled and disarmed the shooter.
Four months later, it's still hard for Fierro to be called a hero.
"Everyone in there that night was a hero," he said.
But Saturday, Fierro received the Lifesaving Military Hero of The Year Award at the American Red Cross Heroes Soirée at the Seawell Ballroom in Denver.
Fierro attended the Soirée with the same people he was with at Club Q the night of the shooting, including his wife Jessica Fierro, and their friends Chip and Joann.
"Chip was shot twice and he was with his wife who was shot five times and Joann, we weren't sure if was gonna make it and she's here tonight celebrating with us," Fierro said.
Fierro's daughter couldn't make it Saturday night. She's still grieving her boyfriend Raymond, who was killed in the shooting.
"In the military, you promote soldiers when they're killed in action to the next rank higher, and he was her boyfriend, so for me, it was like that's now my son-in-law," Fierro said.
Since the shooting, the whole family has been going to therapy.
"I thought I had managed my Army stuff my PTSD from there and this kind of redid everything," Fierro said. He says asking for help has been something he's struggled with in the past.
Fierro wants legislators and the American people to come together to stop gun violence.
"I used a weapon for 15 years in the Army. Doesn't mean it's a bad thing, but at the end of the day do I want certain things in the street? That's solely up to the American people to figure out," Fierro said.
He now has an unbreakable bond with the other survivors, who he calls the real heroes.
"We all have different views, we all had a different lens we grew up in and a different lens of this event, but all of us are tied together as family now," Fierro said.
