David Benke – A Colorado middle school teacher named David Benke tackled a gunman in the midst of shooting several middle school students as school let out.
Dr. David Benke, a math teacher, tackled a deranged man who had already shot two middle school students in the parking lot of Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, Colorado.
Benke confronted the 32-year-old gunman, Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood, after hearing what sounded like firecrackers going off as students left school for the day.
He tackled the gunman as Eastwood was pulling on his bolt-action rifle to reload for another shot and then pinned him to the ground with the help of another teacher.
His heroic act stopped what could have been a much more violent encounter in a city all too familiar with tragic school shootings as the Columbine school shootings happened only three miles away roughly eleven years ago.
“Unfortunately he got another round off before I could grab him,” Benke told reporters. “He figured out that he wasn’t going to be able to get another round chambered before I got to him so he dropped the gun and then we were kind of struggling around trying to get him subdued.”
The two students survived Tuesday’s school shooting, but one student remains hospitalized.
The victims – students Reagan Webber and Matt Thieu – were both treated at Littleton Adventist Hospital, where spokeswoman Christine Alexander said Webber was treated and released to her home. Matt Thieu was transferred to The Children’s Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.
Benke told a TV station that he took part in drills after Columbine and recalled thinking that if the same thing happened, “I hope that I could go after him.”
Denver station KUSA-TV reported that the gunman, Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood, attended Deer Creek Middle School in the early 1990s.
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