Man who wrestled gun from shooter: ‘If I was going to die, he was going to have to work for it’

After being praised as a hero by the mayor of Nashville, James Shaw Jr. said he was just trying to save his own life when he wrestled an assault rifle from a gunman who fatally shot four people at a Waffle House in Tennessee.

“On my Instagram and Facebook, everybody’s calling me a hero, but I want people to know that I did that completely out of a selfish act,” Shaw said during a news conference today. “I was completely doing it just to save myself. Me doing that … I did save other people, but I don’t want people to think that I was the Terminator or Superman or anybody like that. I figured if I was going to die, he was gonna have to work for it.”

Rick Musacchio/EPA-EFE via REX/Shutterstock

The 29-year-old Shaw, the father of a 4-year-old girl, was grazed by a bullet in the rampage at the Waffle House near Nashville, a restaurant he went to with a friend early Sunday after going to a club in the area.

Shaw, an AT&T worker who grew up in Nashville, said the shooting erupted at 3:23 a.m. shortly after he and a friend took a seat. At first, he thought the gunshots were plates breaking in the kitchen.

“Then the second one happened, then the third one happened. I think that’s when the glass busted and broke through,” Shaw said.

Courtesty of James Shaw Jr. via USA Today Network

Police said the suspected gunman, Travis Reinking, 29, arrived at the Waffle House in a pickup truck. He was only wearing a green jacket and nothing else when he opened fire outside the restaurant with an AR-15 assault rifle.

The gunman killed two people outside the restaurant, including a Waffle House cook who had gone out for a cigarette break. The gunman then fired through the window before entering the restaurant to continue his massacre.

“I saw the Waffle House employees scatter. And then I looked back and I saw a person lying on the ground right at the entrance of the door,” Shaw said.

He said he went to an area of near the restroom and hid behind a swivel door that had no lock.

He said a shot came through the door and grazed his elbow.

“It was at that time I kind of made up my mind … that if it was gonna come down to it, he was going to have to work to kill me,” Shaw said.

George Walker IV/The Tennessean via USA Today Network

“So at the time that he was either reloading, or the gun jammed or whatever happened, is when I ran through the swivel door,” he said. “I hit him with the swivel door and then the gun was kind of jammed up and it was pushed down. So we were scuffling and I managed to get one hand on the gun and then I grabbed it from him and I threw it over the countertop.”

He said the gunman was standing at the entrance to the restaurant.

“I was trying to get out the door and I think he was pretty much in the entrance way,” he said. “So I just took him out with me, out of the entrance and all the way outside.”

He said the man then fled.

“I knew I had it in me,” said Shaw, who went to church after being released from the hospital. “But I haven’t had any specific combat training.”

Asked how he got the courage to confront the gunman, Shaw said, “If I didn’t put my life at risk, I’m probably not here.”

Nashville Mayor David Briley called Shaw “Nashville’s newest hero.”

“Thrown into crisis, he acted with courage,” Briley said of Shaw. “He told me he saw an opportunity and he took it. He saved lives. That is certain and we all are thankful to him for his bravery.”