By Katherine Donlevy
The heroic Kansas City Chiefs fan who helped stop one of the alleged shooters at the team’s Super Bowl Parade Wednesday tackled the man to the ground without stopping to think — and his wife grabbed the firearm.
Trey Filter heard somebody shout “Get him!” seconds before he saw a flash of white speeding through a panicked crowd of revelers who were ducking for cover after gunshots rang out.
“My brain tells me, ‘That must be him,’” Filter recalled to The Post hours after the shooting that left one dead and 22 others injured.
“I literally remember when I was tackling him, ‘I sure hope this is who they were yelling at me to get.’ Because I just went, ‘Boom!’ … I really don’t recall seeing him coming.”
The man was one of three people arrested after the shooting.
In a now-viral video, Filter can be seen leaping on the fleeing man and dragging him to the ground, preventing him from sprinting into the sea of confused and terrified attendees.
The suspected gunman quickly wriggled free but was immediately tackled by a second Chiefs fan, who somersaulted in the dirt with the man in a desperate attempt to keep him at bay.
That’s when Filter jumped back into the fray and began pummeling the alleged gunman’s ribs while his wife, Casey, lunged for the gun that the fleeing man dropped during the struggle.
Filter believes the weapon was an AK-47 assault rifle, but police would not confirm when asked by The Post.
“I don’t know if I knocked him out when I tackled him or what, but I had him squeezed so hard, he might have been passed out all the time for all I know. I just started racking him in his ribs,” Filter recalled.
The second Chiefs fan, who Filter said was a complete stranger, delivered several blows to the alleged gunman’s face, which Filter said he never got a chance to see.
Bystanders were screaming that the man had a gun and Filter, not knowing that his wife had already neutralized the threat, continued searching the man for a firearm.
“I was just yelling, ‘F your gun!’ and I was just hitting him in his ribs. It was great. You know, America stuff,” Filter said.
Cops arrived in less than a minute and cuffed the alleged gunman, said Filter.
Filter stood up to a round of applause, looked around for his two sons and plainly said: “Get your mother, we’re getting the f–k out of here.”
The family, who skipped a day of school and work to celebrate their favorite team, had no idea how serious the situation had been until after they had begun their three-hour drive back to their home in Wichita.
At least one person — identified by loved ones as mother of two Lisa Lopez-Galvan — was killed in the shooting and 22 others were injured, including nine children.
Filter, Casey and their two sons, ages 12 and 15, were leaving the celebration when the gunfire erupted. The father said at first he thought somebody had set off firecrackers.
One of his boys asked if it could have been gunshots, to which the asphalt company owner responded: “I highly doubt it.”
“The reason I say that is because there was a military presence on top of the building above us with a .50-caliber machine gun. Obviously, they were capable of using it. Everybody felt pretty safe, I would say,” Filter said.
“Then it’s almost like a mouse is loose in the house and everybody’s jumping.”
Filter humbly danced around praise he’d received and instead commended his fellow Kansas City Chiefs fan with whom he worked in tandem to tackle the alleged gunman.
He also raved about his pride in his wife of 20 years, who grabbed the massive gun before the man could cause more bloodshed.
“I literally just wanted to get some good points in my kids. I felt bad for taking them out of school, but it’s a unique situation, we’re in Kansas. ‘Let’s go to this thing.’ We went last year. I just wanted some dad points. I’m really glad we’re not in the other boat that those people are in,” Filter said.
Police have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting or any details about the alleged gunmen.