Witnesses at a shooting at a Nashua, New Hampshire, country club say that a man saved lives after he hit the alleged gunman over the head with a chair.
“I was talking to a gentleman in there who took a chair, hit him over the head, he dropped the gun, and the man fled,” said Sophie Flabouris, a Lowell teacher who was attending a wedding inside the club. She said that the gunman had blood on him and ran towards the kitchen area.
“He probably saved a bunch of lives from doing that. The shooter was dazed when he came into the ballroom,” said Michael Homewood, who was DJing the wedding.
New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said that the shooting was not as tragic as it could’ve been if not for the patrons of the restaurant.
“I want to commend the selfless acts of courage by the patrons in the restaurant who again put aside care for their safety and worked to intervene and stop the shooter and keep this a much more contained event than it otherwise may have been,” Formella said.
Homewood said he believes the man who hit the gunman was part of the service.
New Hampshire shooting
The shooting killed one man, identified as 59-year-old Robert Steven DeCesare, and injured two others Saturday night at the Sky Meadow Country Club. Police arrested 23-year-old Hunter Nadeau and charged him with one count of second-degree murder. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said that it expects more charges to be brought against Nadeau. He will be arraigned at the Ninth Circuit Court in Nashua on Monday.
Flabouris said the wedding reception had just begun and that the bride had passed out plates to smash when they heard a “pop, pop, pop” coming from the restaurant next door to the ballroom called PRIME. There were over 150 people at the wedding, according to Flabouris.
“At first, I didn’t realize it was gunshots. It sounded like balloons, you know, cause we’re at a festival, thinking somebody popped a balloon. Then you look around, and we didn’t have balloons. Then it got serious,” guest Tom Bartelson said.
“Their wedding got ruined. Comparatively to losing a life. But for these people, they came to celebrate something big and it got completely destroyed,” Homewood said.
Flabouris said that it was thanks to her ALICE training as a teacher that she knew what to do in the situation.
“You don’t evacuate when a shooter is right there. At this point, you barricade, counter, so you have all those things in place. So I hid under a table. Then your next thought is Am I safe here?” Flabouris said.”It’s very scary to experience something like that.”
Flabouris explained that police directed wedding guests to barricade themselves in a locker room while the suspect was at large.
“I can’t put words into place to experience this for the first time. You read about it in the news. We do the training, but when it actually happens, it’s like fight or flight. Run, run, run,” she told reporters.
“It goes on far too often in this country. I don’t know what’s going to change, but something needs to change,” Homewood said.
Wedding guests thanked first responders and police who gave them an armed escort to the Sheraton hotel down the street while the suspect was still at large. The American Red Cross was on scene with therapy dogs for victims.
Homewood said that guests encouraged the bride and groom to still go on their honeymoon despite the tragedy.
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