Active shooter fears at cheerleading competition turned a skirmish into a stampede

USA Today

07-03-2025

Parents, children and spectators at a cheerleading competition in Dallas fled in a chaotic scene over the weekend as fears of a gunman set off a panic, with at least 10 injured trying to get away. But there was no shooter.
Police in Dallas said a fight that broke out between two people on Saturday set off the false alarm. Word that there was a shooter quickly spread at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, which was evacuated while people were told to head to a family reunification center.
Attendees told local news outlets they ran because in the moment, they believed their lives were in danger.
"That was the scariest moment of my life that I thought, like, this was it," Ashley Ryan, a Tulsa resident whose daughters competed at the event, told KWTV-DT.
It's the latest active shooter false alarm in a nation constantly on-edge about the potential for the next mass shooting, said Kelly Sampson, senior policy counsel at the gun violence prevention group Brady.
"If you're in a big, crowded area, if you see one person panicking, you're going to panic too," she said. "It's not like it's unreasonable to think that someone would have a gun, because that's sort of the country and the culture that we've created."
How a skirmish turned into a stampede
Police responded to reports of an active shooter that came in starting at about 1 p.m., the Dallas Police Department said. After investigating, they found no shots had been fired, but that crowd had been startled by the sound of poles being knocked down in the fight. The fight was between parents, according to Brian Bianco, a spokesperson for Varsity Brands, which runs the National Cheerleaders Association All-Star Championship.
In the chaos, at least 10 people were injured and taken to local hospitals. Their conditions weren't life-threatening, and included a range of injuries from bumps and bruises to fractured extremities, Dallas Fire-Rescue Public Information Officer Jason Evans said in a statement to USA TODAY.
Video posted to social media showed dozens of children, some in cheerleading uniforms, and adults running from the convention center. Some fled to nearby businesses and buildings.
"Everybody was just screaming, 'active shooter,' so you don't at that moment, you know, try and make a judgment call: is it real or not?" Denise Cox told KHOU 11. "You just have to act."
Ryan, the Tulsa mom, told KWTV-DT she saw people fleeing in a panic. Some were hiding in cars or begging strangers to be let into their cars.
"It was so hysterical, like it was such a chaotic environment, that it felt like there's no way something crazy is not happening," she said.
One apartment building down the street, SoCo Urban Lofts, told its residents in an email that people fleeing the convention center came into the building through the garage and front lobby. Residents, who were warned to shelter in place, also opened an emergency exit to help people get shelter, an email viewed by USA TODAY said.
At a convenience store nearby, owner Amie Amogu told NBC 5 that about 40 people came in to seek safety. Employees welcomed them in and locked the doors, the outlet reported.
The people involved haven't yet been identified, but Bianco said once they are, they will be banned from future events.
On alert for potential gun violence
Sampson said Americans' reactions to gun violence has evolved as mass shootings have become more common in recent decades, at all kinds of public places from schools to churches to grocery stores.
It makes sense that people at a cheer competition would react with fear when they hear a fight and a loud crash, Sampson said. In the 90s, while she was growing up in a city, Sampson said it was common knowledge to "hit the deck" if you heard a loud noise like a car backfiring, in case it might be a gun firing. She said back then, gun violence was often written off as something impacting Black and brown people in inner cities.
"While it still has a disproportionate impact on Black people, it definitely has become more universal as an experience, or at least a fear," Sampson said. "There's not really a place in the United States that I think we feel immune from it."
Even though no shooter was present in this case, people really were injured, and that has an impact on people's sense of safety, Sampson said. She was at a protest against gun violence several years ago when a similar false alarm caused panic.
"We've seen this happen so many times. You don't have time to think and analyze whether that threat is there, you're just trying to survive," she said.
The events can have lasting impacts on communities, even when no shots are fired, experts say.
"This is a real phenomenon," Arthur Evans, CEO of the American Psychological Association, told USA TODAY in 2019 after a string of similar false alarms. "We don't have to go through these events directly. Simply hearing about them" can affect us in ways similar to those who directly experienced the incident.
Last year, a fight and a "popping sound" at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom caused panic and rumors of a shooter that officials said was untrue. The noise is believed to have been a balloon popping, law enforcement later said.
In June 2019, fears of a mass shooting quickly spread through the crowd attending a Pride parade in Washington, D.C., which caused panic and a stampede as people fled in all directions. Calls of "shooter" were heard as some ducked into nearby businesses and apartment buildings for shelter. Police later said there was no gunfire, but someone was arrested while in possession of a firearm.
Across the country, schools have gone into lockdown and police have swarmed campuses after fake "swatting" calls reported active shootings or bomb threats. Swatting calls are deliberately false reports intended to prompt a mass law enforcement response such as a SWAT team.
"There's a sense of being on edge because we do see so many shootings, and there's no consistent pattern of what type of place a shooting can occur," Sampson said.