(WJAR) — One of the “good Samaritans” credited with intervening with the shooter at the Lynch Arena during the deadly shooting spoke about confrontation with NBC 10 on Tuesday.
Michael Black, who was at the senior night hockey game on Monday, said there was around 10 minutes left in the first period when he heard a popping noise.
“As I was watching the game, I heard a pop, pop. And I thought they were balloons, I thought they were big balloons. And the noise was right in front of me. I looked, and I saw, and heard another pop, and recognized there wasn’t any balloons there, and thought that there was something wrong,” he said.
Black said he was looking around, and saw a pistol being directed at the people in the second row.
“At that point of time, as soon as I saw the pistol, my wife was sitting next to me with some friends, and we didn’t even look at each other, and I just said run, run,” Black said. “I kind of waited and as soon as I saw a clear path, I got on the third level step and he was on the one and a half, and I just jumped across and went for the gun. I wanted to grab the gun. And what had happened was, my hand got caught in the sliding chamber and he shot, and my hand got caught and I was holding him down with my body.”
Black said because his hand was caught on the gun chamber, the shooter could not fire any more shots with that gun.
He said at one point, the shooter shoved him and rolled onto the bleachers.
Black described several more heroes that choked the suspected shooter, now identified as Robert Dorgan.
Police responded to a deadly shooting at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, on Feb. 16, 2026. (WJAR)
Amid the commotion, Black said the shooter ended up falling right below him.
“So literally I’m looking down and he’s looking up and we were staring right at each other. And at that point in time, I wanted to come down and put my knee or something to put it on his body to try to hold them down,” he said.
That’s when, Black said, the shooter pulled out a second gun and shot himself.
When asked about what other described as his life-saving actions, Black said he didn’t see himself as a hero.
“When I saw what the police did, fire, paramedics, at the hospital last night, I have such a high-level appreciation of what they do every day. And as I was sitting at the hospital last night, I recognize, you know, I have heroes in my life, but these should be our heroes,” Black said.
However, he said a phone call he received from a Pawtucket detective changed his perspective a little bit.
“He said, we were interviewing, the daughter yesterday, and she has a belief on what happened. As the shooter was coming down, he was shooting one person, the next, the next. And she said, he was looking at me. I was going to be next. And she told the police officer, until this guy in a black jacket tackled him and took the gun away, I’m sure he would have killed me. And that changed my perspective a little bit of appreciating that, you know, I kind of changed,” Black said.