The actions of one heroic football coach has prevented tragedy at a high school in Oregon. When encountering a student armed with a loaded shotgun, the brave coach calmly embraced the troubled teen and defused the situation.
Newly released video footage from the incident last May shows coach Keanon Lowe comforting the armed student. The footage captures the moment Lowe successfully retrieved the deadly weapon from the student and managed to pass it to another teacher. He then held the distraught young person in a long embrace.
A separate video from the scene shows students fleeing in fear after spotting the gunman in the hallway.
“I walk in there, I get to the classroom, I’m in the classroom for 15, 20 seconds – you know, I ask the teacher, ‘Is the student here?’” Lowe told local news outlet KOIN. “The door opens – I’m within arm’s length of the door, about three feet away from the door, and there’s a kid with a gun, a shotgun. In a fraction of a second, I analyzed everything really fast.”
Instead of trying to tackle the teen, Lowe embraces the student and the pair have a long embrace in the hallway. At one point, the student attempts to break out of the hug but Lowe pulls him back and continues to hold him tight.
“Then it was just me and that student. It was a real emotional time. It was emotional for him, it was emotional for me,” Lowe said after the incident, according to KATU. “In that time, I felt compassion for him. A lot of times, especially when you’re young, you don’t realize what you’re doing until it’s over.”
The student was distraught over a recent breakup with his girlfriend and intended to kill himself, the Oregonian reports. He reportedly didn’t want to do it at home, because he didn’t want his mother to find his body.
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