Provided by: Sally Phillips

The notification sent to the area during the suspected shooting.

   On March 1st, at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, people fled from the premises due to loud noises that may or may not have been gunshots, and claims that someone in the area was armed. Sally Phillips was at the Convention Center because her daughter was competing in the NCA All-Star Cheer Championship.

   While the Dallas Police Department says the noise was caused by poles being knocked over, Phillips says otherwise due to videos and accounts of other cheer families.

   “We found out that … a lot of the chaos was caused by two dads fighting over nachos, …” Phillips said. “I know the officers and Dallas have tried to say that there was no shooting, but semantics of a shooting are that would have meant that somebody got shot, but nobody got shot. So they are able to say there was no shooting. But when you look back at videos of friends that were videoing during that time, you can hear the shots. So whether it was inside the facility or outside the facility, there’s a lot of talk if it was real or not. It was hard in that day and the days following to be told we didn’t hear [a gunshot] when you don’t have that kind of chaos without hearing those things … [If] you add alcohol, you add tempers, you add over expensive nachos and time invested in getting them. If somebody knocked them out of your hand and you … didn’t say sorry, I can see how two dads would probably take to duking it out. Then at some point somebody hollered, ‘He’s got a gun.’ That rippled through the entire place.”

   While different sources contradict one another, Phillips recalls her own experience of when the panic began.

   “[When] the first team in Hall A had just taken the stage were about eight to six counts into their routine with loud music, somebody came over the speaker,” Phillips said. “I don’t know if it was judges or somebody within varsity’s NCA group but they came over the loudspeaker and said, ‘Athletes off the stage, athletes off the stage, parents at the floor. There’s a shooter.’ So I hit the floor so hard, my knees hurt for two days afterwards. And somebody thought to close the doors and to turn out the lights. At this point, we didn’t know anything, so I messaged my oldest daughter, Savannah- and [my husband texted] and just said, ‘I love you. They say there’s a shooter.’ So shortly thereafter- this was like 12:56, when I sent the text- and somebody hollered for us to go back behind the stage.”

   Phillips said the unknown when it comes to a shooter can cause worry and panic.

   “You just don’t know if it’s a targeted shooter, if it’s just a domestic dispute, you don’t know if it’s a group of people that are targeting just the entire location and will be coming randomly in to shoot people,” Phillips said. “You just don’t know how many there are.”

   Eventually, after being reunited with her child a, seventh grader at Nixa Junior High, Scarlet Phillips, their gym decided to increase security.

   “[The] gym has decided to invest in some security for ourselves, for our girls, for parents, for coaches, and [the security guards],” Philips said. “[They] are trained in SWAT and emergency preparedness, and they will have walkie-talkies so that if … a crisis like this happens again, they can communicate, even if the police shut down the bandwidth. That was one of the things that we found out after the fact when no one could get calls in or out. … In Scarlet’s nine seasons of cheering, we’ve never known where the warm-up room was, and we just took it for granted that the coaches and the girls would be safe. And what our gym has told us now is: going into every single competition, we will know where the warmups are. We will know where our girls are. We will have one [security official] with the girls, one with [the parents], and as long as you’re with them, they will coordinate where we’re supposed to go and meet up. And they have assured us that we will have a lay of the land. We will have a map. We will know where warmups are. We will know where a meeting spot is. We will know how to get out [and] where our exits are.”