Taft School Shooter Targeted Teens He Felt Were Bullying Him
Teacher and counselor talked him down after injuring one student
A California teacher's brave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classmates allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.
Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom he claimed to authorities had bullied him for more than year at Taft Union High School.
"I don't want to shoot you," the teen gunman told Heber, who convinced the teen gunman to drop his weapon, a high power shotgun.
Responding to calls of shots fired, campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields arrived at the classroom and helped Heber talk the boy into giving up the weapon.
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My oh my, a high powered shotgun, not a low powered one. I suspect the shells he fired were birdshot as he hit one victim in the chest in a classroom. The victim is expected to survive. Birdshot generally won't cause bodily harm beyond 100yds. Buckshot and/or slugs would've been "high powered."
Though kudos to the teacher, if this guy was as wacked as the SandyHook shooter, the teacher and other students would be dead. Training is great, but plain luck was the primary factor for this tragedy not going further.