Master Sgt. David Royer, who is assigned to Fort Leavenworth, drove his car into a man who was firing “randomly” at drivers on a bridge between Kansas and Missouri, the police said.
Master Sgt. David Royer was leaving Fort Leavenworth in Kansas on Wednesday, driving home in his Chevrolet Silverado and talking to his fiancée on his Bluetooth, when he hit some traffic on the Centennial Bridge, which connects Kansas and Missouri.
Suddenly, he said, a man got out of the vehicle in front of his, pulled out a rifle and began to shoot. Sergeant Royer told his fiancée to call 911 and said he had to go. Then he hit the gas and rammed into the gunman, pinning the shooter underneath his Chevy.
“I wasn’t necessarily frightened,” Sergeant Royer, 34, told reporters on Thursday. “I was shocked that it was happening and the adrenaline took over and, with the military training that I’ve received, I took appropriate action and took out the threat.”
Chief Pat Kitchens of the Leavenworth police said the sergeant, who has served in the Army for 15 years, “saved countless people” after the gunman started to fire at cars “with no particular association” at about 11 a.m.
“What was a very, very dangerous situation fortunately was ended quite quickly,” Chief Kitchens said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The gunman was injured and taken into custody, the chief said. There was one gunshot victim, who was also a soldier at the Army installation, the chief said. The two were taken to a hospital and were in serious but stable condition Wednesday, Chief Kitchens said.
Two cars were struck by gunfire, but the people inside were not hurt, he said.
Chief Kitchens did not identify the gunshot victim or the gunman. He identified the gunman only as a resident of Platte County, Mo., which is north of Kansas City.
“This was an active shooter with multiple weapons on the bridge firing at cars,” he said at the news conference. “The person was simply randomly firing at vehicles as they passed by.”
He said in an interview on Thursday that the gunman was in the hospital and that possible charges would be presented to prosecutors. He said the police had asked the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. for assistance in the investigation.
The gunman had a handgun and a semiautomatic weapon, the chief said. He said the authorities had responded to calls about a possible “road rage” incident that was taking place, but he did not give details about a possible motive or whether the gunman had a criminal history.
Chief Kitchens said in the interview that the gunman had been among the drivers crossing from Kansas to Missouri who were stopped in the single lane while oncoming traffic was allowed to pass from the Missouri side.
The Kansas Department of Transportation had a work project on the bridge on Wednesday and was letting cars pass in alternating lanes, Chief Kitchens said. The Centennial Bridge, spanning almost a half-mile, connects Leavenworth, Kan., with Platte County in Missouri.
Sergeant Royer said that after he rammed the gunman, he put his truck in park and got out. He saw the man’s rifle lying on the ground, assumed he was no longer a threat and then found the man pinned under his truck. The man was making noises, he said, but he could not understand what the man was saying.
Sergeant Royer said he was worried that there might be flammable material in the man’s vehicle, so he went to turn off the ignition and saw a handgun on the passenger seat. When he went back to check on the gunman, he said, the police had arrived.
Sergeant Royer said he immediately called his fiancée and told her he was OK. She had panicked, he said, because she had heard gunshots over the phone.
“I just wanted to get home, get everything back to normal, get to my kids, give them a hug,” he said. “And then I went and I mowed my grass and made dinner and spent time with my family.”
Sergeant Royer said his military training included drills in how to respond to an active shooter on a base. Originally from Mount Vernon, Ohio, he joined the Army in January 2005 and completed military SWAT team training and military police investigative training, among other courses. From July 2005 to July 2006, he served a combat tour in Iraq. He now serves at one of the two military prisons at Fort Leavenworth.
“I don’t necessarily myself feel like I’m a hero,” he said. “I feel as if most people in my situation would have done the same thing. There was nothing else I could do.”
