fiesta time in san antonio for a city like san antonio where it's always festive and vibrant it's hard to imagine a time when this city could come alive and light up even more than usual but for several weeks every spring that's exactly what happens decades old traditions and pageantry mixed with modern day technology and every year spectacles top to last visitors from all over the world come to take it all in and learn the true meaning of fiesta from our locals 35 years ago this april one fiesta event the battle of flowers parade was forever changed by the actions of one man a sniper who barricaded himself inside an rv and began firing into the crowd targeting police officers and shooting several private citizens as well this event changed the way many people think about the world famous celebration and it also changed the way the men and women of the sapd patrol large events even today this special edition of behind the badge commemorates the 35th anniversary of this milestone in san antonio's history it's not to remember the tragic crime itself but to celebrate the actions of hundreds of people who survived the event in true san antonio style it's also a tribute to the officers of the sapd and how we use every resource possible to ensure a safe and sound fiesta for citizens and tourists alike welcome to this special episode of behind the badge ugh thanks for joining us i'm officer misty floyd i'm here at the intersection of broadway and east grayson street this is the location where the tragic event took place 35 years ago here in just a minute i'll introduce you to gary delon a well-known figure in the broadcasting world with a career spanning over five decades gary along with a fellow kins 5 newscaster brought us many of the images that to this day have become iconic of that dreadful event in doing so gary put himself on the front line to bring news in living color to the citizens of san antonio we're on the scene ladies and gentlemen reported shooting of at least four police officers and we've seen at least four victims taken to these ems units right here just a block away from us at grayson and broadway sniper or snipers are at this moment firing from what is believed to be a recreational vehicle everybody has hit the ground several hundred we have uh maybe more than just a dozen wounded already three or four police officers reportedly shot we cannot give you a very good visual view we're having to stay down they've cordoned off this area panic has not hit but just hysteria by all the ladies and their children as two little babies i saw one about two years old shot in the neck and the chest the other in the leg at least four officers reported down automatic weapon fire it sounded like to me so gary we're out here at the intersection of east grayson and broadway where 35 years ago the unthinkable happened standing here today can you tell me a little bit about how you're feeling well it's like the assassination of jfk something like that is indelibly inscribed in your mind forever and you can almost recall moment by moment what you did and where you were and what happened and your emotions and uh just reporting what you could get it's it's difficult to get facts of anything when everybody's shot and when we pulled up here we were within 75 feet i guess of the rv which is right over here so it's right over here this was the old burgrough tire company okay and our attibury had paid 10 bucks to lease the parking spot that's what they used to do okay and so he had backed it in the night before and with this evil intent i guess and uh for some reason he had waited for the color guard to come through he could have shot the color guard as well so after the color guard came through that's when he opened the door and started shooting in here and so shots were still being fired and by that time a lot of police officers were here they didn't have a swat team per se in those days so this one officer is on top of burgroff firing tear gas canisters attempting to get him into the van yes rv so i was standing over here in mid street crouched down and you could still hear the gunfire and by that time um there was an air force bus parked right up the street i saw they pushed it back in order to provide protection for some of the people that we're trying to escape cancel it here comes another young lady that's being dragged literally dragged to the front of the to the bus uh we'll see if she's injured or what or panic stricken she's being helped under their own power apparently is hysteria and that has stricken many of the people here oh they were crying when we arrived at the scene and here comes the bus being moved now from the location we have not heard any fire from that rv for several minutes indicating perhaps the police fire has done some good we don't know we'll let you know as soon as we can we'll stay here we're going to tell you again we will keep live programming i will take that journalistic license from the scene until we clarify the security of this scene well i i think and i've been on many scenes with officers i think it's one of those instances where they too are trained to react and they react to the action and that's what they were doing and they would and you know things have just kind of become faded over the years but the officer that crawled into the rv by getting on his hands and knees and that was a heroic and we we don't give that kind of credit to heroes like that this is a battlefield here this was a battlefield when you have that many wounded and the potential is ever growing every second so you know i was very pleased and very proud to be a part of this day when i saw the results of what san antonio men and more men and blue those days than women but what they did and they didn't take any thought about being in danger i mean they didn't know how many guns this guy had didn't know how many shooters they were but here they were out in the open again and so and you asked every one of them and they they displayed no fear at all i mean they went to the scene to do what they had to do and that's what they were trained to do officer told me that maybe four to five police officers were hit they're not sure how many were hit or how many just fell to the ground i know that if you've been i don't know how close you've been up there as close as i want to get but i they have been pulling the policemen three and four at a time sometimes two have been pulling children there were at one time dozens literally dozens of people laying on the ground they have one by one pulled them back so that the number of people there are very few they were hiding behind some of those folding chairs which was just amazing because it offered no protection at all this is why they brought in the bus was to allow them a shield to crawl under the bus to get out of the line of fire now we have not heard any fire from the last few minutes they may have done some good with that fuselated bullets that the cops above have fired into the rv when smoke started pouring from the rv and there are two things that visitors san antonio's parade goers remember two things one the police department is there for you and two the cooperation and collaboration between the media and the police department without that you have chaos as we would have had that day right i'm so glad that you were there to cover this story and to put out all of those details for people back at home and even you know just throughout the city so you did a great job and i'm really glad that you were brave enough to to step up and do that didn't think even when i was in the army you never think about being brave or courageous you just go do it and if bravery comes out of that that's good but you don't think about it at the time that was awesome thank you so much for coming out here we know that they told us at least three officers maybe four total of 18 have been taken to the hospital four triage units set up here it is now clear it is now secure it is okay all right we're gonna wrap it up margo and let you know that one man the sniper has created all the havoc all the fury from that rv is now dead the sniper is dead inside the rv we don't know yet all of the other victims will keep you informed to the seriousness of the injuries police officers posted downtown during the event stood up to fulfill their oath to protect and serve on that fateful day several of those officers were met with gunfire in return one memorable officer retired lieutenant gary nagy was working on duty while his family attended the event lieutenant nagy was shot as well as his son who was only six years old at the time of the incident here's officer roger zuniga as he sits down with both father and son to talk about that day thank you officer floyd now i'd like to introduce retired sapd lieutenant gary nagy and his son shane nagy gentlemen welcome to the show thank you thank you we're talking about 1979 the fiesta sniper shooting gentlemen you both were there lieutenant nikki can you explain on that day uh kind of paint a picture to what you were doing what your assignment was and what you remember from that particular day well i was a traffic lieutenant and i was in charge of uh the beginning of the parade they call it the ip and we were about about ready to set up the vanguard which is the police the police chief's lead vehicle on the motorcycles leading the parade as they they come out of the ip and basically that's what i was there i was in charge of that the beginning of the parade okay and uh what happened that you that your your attention what happened that day that caught your attention can you speak some more about that well the we were discussing we were out in the middle of the street at grayson and broadway and uh we were like say the parade was just getting ready to begin and we were discussing you know how to set up the vehicles when to start the praying and then i heard a little pop and i i felt something yeah and really couldn't figure it out until i heard a second pop it wasn't a loud bang and i could feel an impact and from that point on i went to turn to ask the sergeant what was happening and i found out that i couldn't walk i just fell down in the street and uh then i knew that you know i had been shot and as i was laying there i was trying to get up couldn't do it and uh started to crawl towards uh jeep and it's officer byrum albert byram i'll never forget this came out in the middle of the street and grabbed my hand and drugged me behind the cheek from that point on i was i was heard the shots being fired large number of shots and while i was laying on the stretcher my wife who i'd got prime seats for my son and my daughter come running over to the stretcher and uh and grabbed a bottle of iodine and poured it all over me now why she did that she was a registered nurse okay that makes sense yeah and then i sat there and a few minutes later i this i saw this police car backing up and a patrolman back up between the gunman and where i was and he jumped out of the car and pulled another two other officers into the car and then drove up next to the chief and then got out and got the officers out that were shot they were also shot from that point i could i could hear the shooting and there were you know a fairly good number of policemen around that area by then then i noticed uh officer tommy cavasso was behind a barrel firing at the the rv or in that direction and at this point did you realize exactly what was going on at that point i yes i knew exactly what was going on at that point and you can tell where the i'm sorry you could tell where the the sniper was at this point uh yes yes i knew where the sniper was at this point yes okay yeah and sergeant [ __ ] you were at the scene as well on this day can you tell us a little background about how old you were and where you were at in relation to the gunman and what your what your thoughts are yes i was uh six years old i was with my mom and my sister and my sister had a friend there my sister i believe she was about 13 years old and we were laying on a blanket we're sitting on a blanket about 25-30 feet in the line of fire between the rv was on one side policemen were in the middle of the intersection and we were about 25 30 feet behind the policeman waiting for the parade to start okay and what do you remember from that day once you saw did you hear any shots or how what was your first recollection of something was not right well i mean right out of the gate when you're six years old you're waiting for the parade to start i think it's fireworks and everything's great and then all of a sudden uh my you know i'm looking out in the street and my dad goes down he'll think he was one of the first ones hit uh yeah he was the first one hit and he goes down another policeman goes down and then crowd just starts going crazy running and then my sister and my mother and the other girl jump on top of me because i was six to cover me and then shortly after that i believe uh an undercover detective grabbed hold of us kids uh got us in the back of a an unmarked car that was still out there in that intersection area had us lay down and then my mother ran to him to help him and a few minutes after that the detective had to you know told us we needed to to uh get out of the the car because the tires had been shot out and they couldn't drive it off so uh they took us around a building or something i i can't remember exactly where they took this i was six years old at the time but i i definitely remember the you know people running and the crowd going crazy and see baby carriages left in the and you know in the street and you're six and you're thinking wow this is you know you know they're leaving babies out here no no babies were left but you're at that age that's what i'm gonna end you know i'm thinking my dad just my dad's dead and my mom's ran out there and now she's gone but those are the things that are running through your mind at that age i see wrapping this up now sir what impressed you the most about your fellow officers that were out there on the scene at this day what do you remember as far as being very impressive to you i'd say the main thing main two things that i remember were the albert byram the officer actually came out in the line of fire and grabbed me and drugged me behind the jeep and then james middleton patrolman that got in the chief's car and drove it in between the two officers and the shooter getting out of the car and actually saving those two guys because they were they were just laying laying right in the middle of the street so that's the all the rest of the officers keyed on the motor home uh fairly quickly after about a minute or so and were directing fire at them from every angle all you say is there was a lot of guys a lot of heroes a lot of heroes out there yes well i like to thank you both for being on the show today and for sharing these thoughts and these images that you've kind of painted for us the picture so we can all understand it i really really appreciate you all being on the show today incidents such as this are the very reason why the sapd trains to the degree we do the safety of our citizens is not something we take lightly sergeant salazar sat down with police chief william mcmanus to discuss how training within the san antonio police department has evolved since that fateful day thank you officer zuniga as roger mentioned i'm here with chief william mcmanus to talk about not only the tragic event from 35 years ago but how we've evolved as an agency to plan for events like fiesta like most san antonios who lived here at the time the fiesta sniper incident left its mark on me it was such a landmark incident that even though i was only eight years old at the time i can tell you exactly where i was and what i was doing at the time kens5 broke that story now chief mcmanus wasn't here 35 years ago when this happened but he can certainly offer his own perspective on it chief welcome to behind the badge thanks uh sergeant appreciate it uh chief you know i know that back in 79 you were probably a patrolman with dc correct okay so i mean i know that you can speak to the the differences in the way major departments like dc metropolitan and the sapd plan for major events like this what what sort of developments have you seen from then to now there's been a number of incidents in the united states that have impacted or affected the way police handle active shooting type events there's also been a lot of developments in technology that help us out with those events there's been different training different ways to approach active shooting events and large you know demonstrations with a with a lot of people okay so we we knowing that uh going into these these big events we know that that's a distinct possibility at any time we try to minimize that by pre-planning can you tell us some of the stuff that we do here at the sapd to to pre-plan for fiesta you know with other agencies with uh with units within our department there's a big emphasis on the the uh event that you just talked about uh we consider that our security up and down the whole parade route trying to figure out entrances and exit routes and how to account for the volume of of people that are you know packed from from curbline to building line um you know we make arrangements for our swat unit uh our plainclothes officers uh canine you know securing the areas you know before people come into them so there's just a lot that goes into planning for these large events given all the things that could happen and have happened in the past okay well chief i mean i i know i've been here for 20 years uh and i can i can honestly say that that i've always seen in my observation fiesta is kind of an all hands on deck type thing it is all hands on deck and and even before all hands on deck there's just a lot of planning that goes into uh you know the final product sure almost almost at the right at the at the end of the last event we start meeting for for next year's events sure we sure do and and you know also you know we've got our fusion center uh saric uh and they're they're heavily involved in planning for the event and actually as a command point for the event okay and so it's it's almost the brains of the operation so to speak as as we're as we're going through these through fiesta um i know that there are several pre pre-planning meetings but in addition to that fiesta commanders stay in touch with each other throughout throughout the event throughout the timeline of fiesta not correct they do communication is is a key to helping keep people safe okay good now i know that uh in addition to all the officers that are out there from various units within the department we've got swat that's been involved the gang unit pop unit plainclothes officers i know that we've got several uh citizen involvement programs that also help that are just basically extra eyes out there on the parade route for us the explorers and the vips can you talk a little bit about those right yeah we have uh we have a number a great number of uh our vips or our our police volunteers uh they come in uh they do great work uh they take care of a lot of work that there are a bunch of extra eyes exactly is what they boil down to and our explorers are out there and uh you know they're very vigilant they're in in training so to speak but they're very vigilant for uh you know things that may not look right things that seem suspicious things that give them a gut feeling that something may be wrong so between them and between our vips you know we cover a little bit more area than we might with just uh our uniforms sure now what can the the general public that's out there what can they do uh whether they're they're coming to a parade or coming to one of the other events at market or carnival what can the general public do to help us help them to do what we do well the first thing that comes to mind is if a member of the along the parade route a member of the public sees anything suspicious uh or sees a suspicious package or you know a backpack going back to the boston marathon they should let a police officer know i recall when over at the alamo dome during the canelo fight there was a backpack that somebody deemed suspicious they called police we let us know and that whole section was cleared and we found out that there was nothing in the backpack that was harmful but as a matter of precaution we were glad that they did that sure i mean i i know that uh that over the years i've seen several incidents where uh you know the the bombing in the olympics uh the the boston marathon people saying gosh you know i saw that there and i just didn't say anything so uh hindsight is 20 20. uh it's probably much better to to say something and take the chance that it's going to turn out to be nothing and you might feel a little foolish uh than to have have something happen that that could have been prevented just by saying and it doesn't cost anything to let us know and and there's absolutely no reason to feel um like you did something wrong or you overreacted if in fact you do call and it turns out to be nothing we'd rather it turn out to be nothing than something that wasn't reported and sure something terrible happens sure so in short if you see something say something if you see something say something okay for sure that's certainly the mantra that we're uh we're chanting around here if you see something say something it's uh it's a simple phrase um chief can you can you talk a little bit about what other type of initiatives we're doing as a police department around fiesta maybe not necessarily at the events but what other initiatives are we pushing right now to ensure that we make it through the fiesta season and the rest of the year for that matter safe and sound well dwi comes to mind uh first and foremost you know we're encouraging people to to come down celebrate but celebrate responsibly we don't want people coming down drinking and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle uh that's number one number two we just talked about it see something say say something anything suspicious and you know we would we would probably uh be putting out a good message if we were to tell folks you know hey if you don't have to bring a backpack don't bring a backpack you know backpack a backpack is what held the explosive device sure uh up in boston everybody knows that so uh the the less you know you're carrying uh the less anyone has to be suspicious about sure sure well i mean it sounds like as a department we're we're ready for this uh this event or this series of events um just just long story short chief is is fiesta safe it it is one of the safest events anywhere in the country fiesta is absolutely safe san antonio's are here to have a good time period that's all we want to do and that's what we encourage come on down have a good time be safe feel safe we're here to take care of it well you heard it here first from from the chief himself come down enjoy everything that fiesta has to offer let's just do it safely and responsibly chief thanks for coming on today thanks sergeant well we hope you enjoyed our special episode of behind the badge we'd like to extend a special thanks to retired lieutenant gary nagy and sergeant shane nagy and of course kens5 and gary delon we would also like to give tribute to the six officers wounded in the line of duty with dozens of civilian casualties and the two young ladies who lost their lives that day fiesta just wouldn't be the same without the battle of flowers parade now despite that tragedy felt by so many those 35 years ago in true san antonio fashion festivities continued that following night and still continued to this day one other thing hasn't changed as chief mcmanus showed you the men and women of the sapd stand ready to ensure a safe and happy fiesta for everyone now and for many years to come thanks for watching and remember fiesta save san antonio ugh i got no polls just buzzed you didn't tell us that sir you're right this isn't happening he'll be fine yeah i feel good really no not really buzz driving maybe we should stop acting like it's no big deal playing in the wnba takes a lot of practice so i attend every practice to work on my game i'm danielle robinson you too should attend school every day because that's what it takes to be a winner whether you're in school or in sports you need to show up to win that's why i support sa kids attend a win and by the way winners call me danielle foreign