Chiefs players comfort frightened children during Super Bowl parade mass shooting
When gunshots were fired at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl parade on Valentine's Day, panic ensued with people running in every direction to get to safety. A beloved local DJ died and 21 others were wounded, according to police.
The Chiefs and their entire staff were quickly ushered to safety, but multiple players and head coach Andy Reid comforted others before they were escorted from the scene.
Multiple Chiefs players calmed frightened children during the chaos, including quarterback Blaine Gabbert, tackle Trey Smith, long snapper James Winchester, center Austin Reiter and quarterback Chris Oladokun. Smith even went to one kid, sat with him and gave him a WWE title belt.
Smith and another player found shelter in a closet, he told Good Morning America, helping as many people as possible do the same.
"Right before I run in there, there's a little kid in front of me, so I just grabbed him and yanked him up and said, 'You're hopping in here with me, buddy,'" Smith said. "I don't know how many people were in the closet, maybe 20-plus.
"One of my teammates, my long snapper James Winchester, was very instrumental in helping keep people calm."
After exiting the closet, Smith said the players were ushered to team buses. On the way, he saw a small boy who was "hysterical" and stopped to talk to him.
"He just panicked. He was scared. He doesn't know what's going on," Smith said. "I had the WWE belt the entire parade and I was thinking, 'What can I do to help him out?' I just handed him the belt and said, 'Hey buddy, you're the champion. No one is gonna hurt you. No one's gonna hurt you, man. We got your back.'"
Reiter’s agent Nodirbek Talipov called the players heroes.
"They risked their lives to attend to kids and calm them down without really knowing what’s coming next," Talipov told USA TODAY Sports.
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Chiefs head coach Andy Reid also helped comfort at least one teenager at the scene, according to the Kansas City Star.
"Andy Reid was trying to comfort me, which was nice," Gabe Wallace, a sophomore at a local high school told the Star. "He was kind of hugging me, just like, ‘Are you OK, man? Are you OK? Just please breathe.’ He was being real nice and everything. He left to check on other people, I’m pretty sure."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chiefs players calm children frightened by Super Bowl parade shooting
