Heroes Not Zombies

A man walks into an infant school with a gun and a lot of ammunition………

…..I felt like I’d read this story before. Not so far from where I live, in 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into the Primary School in Dunblane…..you probably know the story. America, sadly, you have many of these stories……..

…..but this one didn’t continue the way the other ones did.

In this story, the man was met inside by Antoinette Tuff, the school bookkeeper. Over the course of the next hour or so, she talked to him calmly, hearing from him that he had no reason to live and hoped to die when the police arrived. She managed to call 911 and the recording of that call is easy to find on the web. At one point she was carrying out three conversations at once – with the gunman, with the local TV station he asked her to call, and with the 911 operator.

She empathised with his distress and pain and shared with him some of the difficulties she herself was going through, convinced him he didn’t need to shoot anyone, and he didn’t need to die.

She eventually talked him into putting aside his gun and lying on the floor in wait for the police to come and get him.

As she talked to him the children and the teachers were able to escape to safety. (Read more of the story here.)

During her conversation with the suicidal Hill, she opened up to him about the problems she had faced in her own life, explaining that she had a severely disabled son, and had recently separated from her husband of 33 years – but that she had picked herself up and started her own business. “I told him, we all have situations in our lives, [but] it was going to be okay. If I could recover, he could, too.” After about an hour, Hill had calmed down sufficiently that Ms Tuff began trying to persuade him to surrender, even suggesting that she walk outside with him to prevent his being shot by police. “[I] let him know that he could just give himself up,” she told WSB-TV. “I told him to put [the guns] on the table, empty his pockets. He had me actually get on the intercom and tell everybody he was sorry… “I give it all to God. I’m not the hero. I was terrified.”

This is an incredibly moving story. I can’t actually remember when I last felt so moved by a story in the daily newspaper. She showed compassion, she had hope, and she had faith. More than anything she saw Michael Hill as a human being and she talked to him with kindness, gentleness and love.

As Hill lay on the floor of the office and prepared to surrender, Ms Tuff can be heard on the 911 recording, telling him: “I just want you to know that I love you and I’m proud of you.” It was then that he finally told her his name.

You know when we read all these terrible stories of cruelty and horror every day, it comes as even more wonderful to come across a story like this, where we get to hear about the wonderful potential which exists in human beings too – the potential to connect, and the power of compassion.

You really are a hero, Antoinette Tuff.