- Sgt Kendrick Simpo was working a second job as a security guard at the Galleria Mall on February 5 when he received a call about a man with a rifle
- He and another security guard quickly made their way to the department store, but Simpo made sure he didn’t take out his gun and startle children and parents
- He soon found the suspect – Guido Herrera – just about 10 feet from where a children’s dance competition was taking place and tackled him
- Simpo said he was able to point the rifle toward the ceiling before backup arrived and restrained Herrera without a single shot being fired
- About one month later, Herrera was arrested again when he went to the Houston FBI offices and asked to speak to the director with a gun inside his car
A heroic Houston cop who sprang into action earlier this year to stop a man from apparently opening fire at a children’s dance competition has spoken out for the first time.
Sgt. Kendrick Simpo was working a second job as a security guard at the Galleria Mall in Houston’s Uptown District on February 5 when he received a call about a man with a rifle walking near the Macy’s.
He and another security guard quickly made their way to the department store, but as he ran, he said he made sure he would not startle hundreds of children and adults gathered for a dance competition, which was just a few hundred feet from Macy’s.
‘I did know there was a dance competition with little kids going on at the Westin Ballroom, so I didn’t pull my weapon out because I didn’t want to be running towards the Macy’s area – which is past the ballroom area – with the gun,’ Simpo recounted to ABC 13.
Soon, he said, he saw the suspect – who was later identified as Guido Herrera – just about 10 feet from the entrance to the Westin Ballroom’s entrance where the competition was taking place.
‘I quickly bum rushed, tackled him,’ Simpo said. ‘And my first reaction was to make sure that I get a hold of the rifle. No matter what I grabbed, make sure I grabbed that rifle.’
‘I had in my mind [that] I was going to get shot, I just had to bear the pain. I knew it was going to hurt and I was like, “Whatever I do, I cannot let go of this rifle.”‘
