A fired food service worker crashed his vehicle into several other vehicles Friday and drove into the interior of Lambeau Field as he chased a former co-worker with whom he'd had a dispute. Jeff Bollier/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
GREEN BAY - The man who triggered a massive police response at Lambeau Field Friday is well-known to local police officers — especially those who enforce drunken-driving laws.
Chay Vang, 40, of Western Avenue, Green Bay, has five convictions for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and at least three for driving after his license had been revoked, online court records show.
On Friday, Vang smashed his car into a group of parked vehicles and then drove down a ramp into the stadium, touching off a chain of events that saw dozens of police officers from across Brown County rush to Lambeau, firefighters prepare to send multiple ambulances to the scene, and emergency dispatchers prepare to lock down schools in parts of Green Bay and Ashwaubenon because of a report of an "active shooter" at the stadium.
The report that there was a gunman was incorrect — though officers didn't know it at the time. And six minutes after the first call came into the county's 911 center, the incident was over without a shot being fired, authorities said, because police and firefighters had trained for just such a scenario.
"We have a number of plans for incidents at Lambeau," said Green Bay Police Commander Paul Ebel. "This was 'active shooter, non-game day.' And the guy who wrote that plan for us was one of the supervisors on duty (Friday)."
RELATED: Suspect in Lambeau incident had been fired from food service job
Here's what else happened, according to police and fire officials:
Before the incident
The sequence of events actually began about 12:45 p.m. Friday when Vang arrived at Green Bay Police headquarters to complain that he had been unfairly fired from his job as a food-service worker with the Delaware North Corp. The company, which has provided concessions and dining service at Lambeau Field since 2012, fired Vang about three weeks earlier for unspecified reasons.
After he was told police couldn't resolve a workplace dispute, Vang drove the roughly 3.3 miles to Lambeau Field in a white Pontiac Trans Am. There, he smashed his car into a car occupied by one of his former co-workers, ultimately wedging the man's small blue car beneath a dark minivan.
When the man got out and ran, Vang chased him around the parking lot with his car, driving through an open loading-dock gate and inside the stadium. There he crashed his car into a storage room not far from the room where police hold people arrested during Packers games as they await transport to jail.
At 1:06 p.m., someone called dispatch. Apparently mistaking the crashing of the cars for gunshots, Police Chief Andrew Smith said, the caller said there was a gunman at Lambeau.
Alarm sounded
From Green Bay, 27 officers responded. So did dozens of others, from Ashwaubenon Public Safety, the Wisconsin State Patrol, the Brown County Sheriff's Office and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
"Anyone who could assist," Ebel said, "was there."
Fire officials, meanwhile, prepared for the worst. A Green Bay Metro Fire lieutenant called for "a life-safety box alarm," Chief David Litton said. That gets 10 ambulances from the area ready to roll to the scene.
"We have a plan in place for everything you can think of, and we practice for it," Litton said. "Everything we put into place worked the way it was supposed to."
In fact, one ambulance was already on scene. Paramedics had responded from their West Mason Street station to the opposite side of the stadium minutes earlier, Litton said, to treat a woman with an injured leg.
First officers arrive
Green Bay Officer Craig Brey, patrolling nearby, raced to the scene and was the first officer to arrive. Following procedures adopted in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, Ebel said, Brey entered the loading dock "looking to neutralize the shooter."
"These are the scenarios that keep me up at night," Smith would say later. "We want our guys to have the mindset that you've got to deal with it — you're the tip of the spear."
Moments later, officers Tim Eickholt and Tim Kenney entered the stadium through another door and met up with Brey. Outside, Lt. Jeff Engelbrecht — the man who'd written the department's blueprint for how to respond to such an incident — prepared to enter with several other officers.
Officers from the Packers' security team, meanwhile, blocked off the loading dock entrance so that nobody who wasn't a cop or a firefighter could get inside.
Engelbrecht's crew weren't needed inside. Brey, Eickholt and Kenney, pistols drawn, had arrested Vang without incident about 1:12 p.m.
Vang was cooperative, Smith said. The man, it turned out, did not have a weapon.
Authorities no longer had a need for a school lockdown.
Not done yet
But authorities weren't done yet. In a world where sports arenas have become potential targets for terrorists, officials wanted to be certain that Vang hadn't brought explosives with him.
Though fire officials could cancel the call for ambulances, they weren't sure they were out of the woods yet.
They called in the bomb squad, and a sniffing-type device was brought to the stadium to check for potentially dangerous substances. The section of the parking lot around the damaged cars was kept cordoned off with yellow police tape.
Fortunately, no explosives were found.
Next for Vang
Vang was in the Brown County Jail without bond Saturday on suspicion of four counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety of persons. He also faces a probation violation charge pending in connection with his most-recent felony OWI conviction, which was in Brown County 2015.
He is likely to be formally charged on Tuesday, when courts reopen after the Christmas holiday.
Vang was convicted of third- and fourth-offense OWI in 2010, court records show. He also has a conviction for tampering with or disabling an ignition-interlock device.
Impact on fans?
Ebel and Smith said the incident might prompt a few tweaks to how police approached security for Saturday night's Packers game against the rival Minnesota Vikings. But they said fans would be unlikely to notice the differences.
Longer-term, public safety officials will meet with Packers representatives to decide if other changes need to be made.