Sherae Honeycutt

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — Original Post

An active-duty soldier at Fort Leavenworth is being hailed a hero for intervening and ending an active shooting Wednesday morning on the Centennial Bridge.

Police say his actions saved multiple lives.

Leavenworth Police Chief Patrick Kitchens said officers were called to the bridge at 11 a.m. for a report of shots fired that was originally reported as a result of road rage.

When officers arrived they found one man with a gunshot wound and another man trapped under a car. Emergency crews took both to a Kansas City hospital with serious injuries.

As police investigated and spoke with witnesses, they learned it wasn’t a road rage incident, but actually an active shooter who was stopped in the act.

“Learned this was an active shooter with multiple weapons on the bridge firing at cars with no particular association,” Kitchens said.

“There was an active-duty soldier assigned to Ft. Leavenworth waiting in traffic behind the event, saw the event unfold, determined it was an active shooter and intervened by striking the shooter with his vehicle, causing him to be critically injured, ending the encounter with the active shooter and likely saving countless lives.”

The man who suffered a gunshot wound is also an active duty soldier at Ft. Leavenworth. The shooter is a Platte County resident.

Angela Harper lives a couple streets away from the bridge. She heard a boom or two Wednesday morning, but thought it was just the sounds of the neighborhood.

“I heard two bang noises, which I found out later that they were shots,” she said. “Down here we hear a lot of that type of stuff because of the train going by and everything else. So nothing seemed out of norm for me until I heard all the cop cars, all the helicopters, everything going around.”

Another man who lives close to the scene in an apartment told FOX4 he heard between 10-13 shots. He too thought it was train-related, perhaps someone firing bullets at railcars.

The Centennial Bridge was closed for the emergency and reopened at about 4:45 p.m.