An Oregon high school football and track coach is being hailed as a hero after surveillance footage was released showing him disarming a student carrying a loaded shotgun in May, CNN reported.
After successfully ridding the teen of his firearm, coach Keanon Lowe can then be seen embracing the student, contradicting earlier reports that he’d tackled the gunman to disarm him.
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On May 17, 18-year-old Angel Granados-Diaz entered Parkrose High School carrying a loaded shotgun.
Lowe, who also works as a campus security guard, was called to the school’s fine arts building to get a student from a classroom.
Footage of the incident shows him nearly crossing paths with Granados-Diaz in a hallway.
At this point, Granados-Diaz had his shotgun hidden away inside his coat.
Lowe said he was in the classroom for maybe 15-20 seconds before Granados-Diaz showed up.
“The door opens — I’m within arm’s length of the door, about 3 feet away from the door, and there’s a kid with a gun, a shotgun,” he told KOIN 6 .
It’s a hard thing to process at once, but that’s what Lowe had to do.
“In a fraction of a second, I analyzed everything really fast. I saw the look in his face, look in his eyes, looked at the gun, realized it was a real gun and then my instincts just took over.”
The next thing we see in the footage is Lowe backing out of the classroom, shotgun in hand, as he leads Granados-Diaz out as well.
The football coach said he lunged at the teen and managed to wrestle the gun away from him as students inside the classroom screamed and scattered.
Once they were in the hallway, Lowe handed off the gun to another teacher and then did something no one expected to see.
He wrapped his arms around the tearful Granados-Diaz and pulled him in for a hug.
As students and teachers evacuated the school and police were called, Lowe stayed put and focused on consoling the teen.
“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,” he said.
Lowe said he spoke to the teen while they embraced to try and comfort him.
“Obviously, he broke down and I just wanted to let him know that I was there for him,” Lowe said . “I told him I was there to save him. I was there for a reason and that this is a life worth living.”
Later, the pair sat on the floor in the hallway as police arrived to put Grandos-Diaz under arrest.
According to the district attorney’s office, the teen had made suicidal statements to another student, and never pointed the gun at anyone but himself that day.
It was also never fired.
Granados-Diaz did attempt to pull the trigger but the shotgun, which was loaded with one round, didn’t fire. It was at this point that Lowe took the gun away from him.
Though the incident occurred in May, surveillance footage showing Lowe and Grandos-Diaz was just released on Friday by the district attorney’s office.
Initial reports claimed Lowe had forcibly tackled the teen to the ground in order to take the gun out of his hands.
But this emotional footage proves that Lowe was significantly more delicate in his approach, even ending the risky encounter with a hug.
Watch the full video below.
Grandos-Diaz pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful possession of a firearm in a public building and one count of unlawful possession of a loaded firearm in public.
Last week he was sentenced to three years of probation and will also receive mental health and substance abuse treatment.
He is prohibited from entering school grounds during his probation.
“Through the course of the investigation it became clear to law enforcement and our office that Mr. Granados-Diaz did not have the intent to hurt anyone other than himself while at Parkrose High School,” Deputy District Attorney Parakram Singh told CNN .
