A high school teacher in Washington State who risked himself to disarm a student gunman told
Newsmax TV on Monday that he is both heartened and overwhelmed at the attention he has received for his actions.
"It's been two weeks of a lot of stress and a lot of long nights, but at the same time the most incredible feeling I've had and my family's had," Brady Olson, a government and politics teacher at North Thurston High School in Lacey, Washington, told "Newsmax Now" co-host Miranda Khan.
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"Our community has been amazing," said Olson, a military veteran who last week got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Seattle Mariners baseball game.
Olson re-lived his harrowing encounter with an armed 16-year-old, who walked through a school common area on a Monday morning, April 27, and fired off a handgun in what authorities said was an attempted "suicide by cop."
Olson reached the student first.
"I don't know if it was a rational thought at the time, but I thought, 'I have to get the gun away from him to prevent him from harming students,'" said Olson. "Students were fleeing in every direction and I just acted. I wrapped around him and made sure to get his arm down so he couldn't raise the gun. We went to the ground. I dug underneath him, located the weapon, and looked to, I guess, flick it across the floor to someone else."
A city police officer who provides security for the high school helped Olson subdue the student. Subsequent reports described the young gunman as a sophomore who had recently transferred from another high school in the state.
Asked about people calling him a hero for the way he prevented bloodshed, Olson demurred.
"I don't know if that title fits me very well," he said. "I've said before that I've got a lot of friends in the military, a very good friend who's been deployed multiple times — those are heroes to me. I reacted to a situation and it's pretty much as simple as that."
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