DALLAS — Dallas police say they have ended their investigation into the scare that caused mass panic at a cheerleading competition March 1, but the investigation continues into the brawl between two cheer parents. And one of them is speaking out to WFAA.
“Well, for me, honestly, it’s been absolute hell,” said Zachary Whittaker from his home in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Widely circulated video on social media, and now police reports, identify him as one of the “cheer dads” in a fight in the skyway that leads from the Omni Hotel to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.
“I was the one who was assaulted and I just want my name cleared,” Whittaker said.
In the version of events he has also shared with Dallas police investigators, he says a teen in the cheer group he was helping chaperone, accidentally bumped into a woman in the crowd. He says the adult said something rude to the teen.
“And I turned and I said, don’t talk to a child like that.”
After which, he says the woman’s husband responded.
“And next thing you know I’m getting hit in the back of the head. I turn around, I get punched in the face. And then I just tackle him to the ground,” Whittaker said. “And then I just laid into him.”
Whittaker says that after several other parents pulled them apart, he stayed to talk with a police officer, provided his identification and his account of what happened. But the mass chaos that erupted in the crowd of thousands, he says happened several minutes later. He says cheerleaders and their families began running toward him in the skyway, not immediately away from him.
“And literally like, five minutes after that, all hell broke loose,” he said. “Everybody was running into the Omni from the Convention Center, and I mean, like a wave of people like you’ve never seen.”
Police say the fight, fast-spreading rumors and falling metal poles in a different part of the convention center that might have sounded like gunfire, contributed to the mass panic that day.
In a written statement DPD tells WFAA “The investigation concluded there was no active shooter, and that investigation is closed; however, the Dallas Police Department continues to investigate the fight between the two individuals.”
Police have not identified the other man involved in the fight, although Whittaker says he believes he knows who he is. And no charges have been filed.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself. I defended my child,” Whittaker said. “I did what any parent would do.”
Thousands of cheer parents still wait to see what happens next.
Earlier this month, Varsity Spirit, the company that owns the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA), is offering spectator refunds, counseling and virtual competitions to those impacted