A middle school teacher in Idaho confronted a school shooter and disarmed her, she said.
Krista Gneiting, who teaches math at Rigby Middle School in a town near Idaho Falls, was preparing her students for final examinations on May 6 when they heard the first shot.
AT LEAST EIGHT DEAD IN RUSSIA SCHOOL SHOOTING
“So, I just told my students, ‘We are going to leave, we’re going to run to the high school, you’re going to run hard, you’re not going to look back, and now is the time to get up and go,'” Gneiting said Wednesday on Good Morning America.
A sixth-grader allegedly brought a handgun to school, took it out of her backpack, and began shooting just before 9 a.m. local time. She shot two students and one adult, the custodian; all three are expected to survive, police said.
Gneiting went to help one of the wounded students when she saw who the shooter was, a sixth-grader, she said.
“It was a little girl, and my brain couldn’t quite grasp that,” she said. “I just knew when I saw that gun, I had to get the gun.”
“I just walked up to her, and I put my hand over her hand, I just slowly pulled the gun out of her hand, and she allowed me to,” she said. “She didn’t give it to me, but she didn’t fight, and then after I got the gun, I just pulled her into a hug because I thought, this little girl has a mom somewhere that doesn’t realize she’s having a breakdown, and she’s hurting people.”
The math teacher then called 911 as she hugged the student, she said.
“After a while, the girl started talking to me, and I could tell she was very unhappy,” Gneiting added. “I just kept hugging her and loving her and trying to let her know that we’re going to get through this together.”
The officer, once law enforcement arrived, was “very gentle and very kind” in his treatment of her, Gneiting said.
The student has been arrested and charged, according to the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, though it is unclear the crimes she’s been charged with committing. Her name has not been released publicly.
“She is just barely starting in life, and she just needs some help. Everybody makes mistakes,” she said. “I think we need to make sure we get her help and get her back into where she loves herself so that she can function in society.”
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The teacher’s brother-in-law praised her motherly instincts, according to the Associated Press.
“Krista is a born mother,” Layne Gneiting wrote on Facebook. “Mess with her kids she’ll rip you apart. Need a hug she’ll hold you for hours, mingling her tears with yours … Determination pushed her to act, but tenderness and motherly love — not force — lifted the gun from the girl’s hands to hers.”
