Police are calling 29-year-old James Shaw Jr. a hero after he wrestled an AR-15 rifle away from a gunman at a Waffle House restaurant near Nashville, Tennessee, early Sunday, CNN reported.
“He is the hero, and no doubt he saved many lives,” Metro Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said during a press conference Sunday afternoon.
The incident took place around 3:30 a.m. when suspect Travis Reinking, 29, of Morton, Illinois, shot and killed two people in the parking lot of the restaurant in Antioch. He then entered the restaurant and opened fire on patrons, killing one and wounding another, who later died. Reinking was naked except for a green jacket.
Shaw hid near the restrooms after he heard the first shots, then ambushed the shooter when he realized he was reloading.
“It was at that time I made up my mind that if it was going to come down to it he was going to have to work to kill me,” said Shaw, a Nashville native. “I ran through the door, I hit him with the swivel door and the gun was jammed up and we were scuffling. I grabbed it from him and threw it.”
Shaw then pushed the shooter out the front door.
Aaron said Reinking shed his jacket after fleeing the scene, then went back to his apartment to put on a pair of black pants. He's still on the loose and there’s a chance he is armed with two other weapons.
Shaw, who suffered minor injuries in the melee, including cuts and an injured elbow, told reporters he wasn't a hero.
"On my Instagram and Facebook everybody's calling me a hero. I was doing that completely out of a selfish act," he told reporters. "I was doing it just to save myself. My doing that, I did save other people, but I don't want people to think I was the terminator or 'Superman' or anybody like that. But I figured if I was going to die, he was going to have to work for it. So I rushed him and it actually worked out to my favor."
Shaw also said some "divine entity" was looking over him.
"I do believe in a divine entity, I just don't know if his name is God or Jesus, or Buddha or Allah or what it is. But for a tenth of a second, something was with me to run through that door and get the gun from him. Because you could probably do that ten times and you could only come out one time with the outcome I came out with. So somebody, something, some divine entity, something was looking over me."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.