Nevada schoolteacher Michael Landsberry is being praised as a hero after he was shot and killed on Monday morning defending his students from a boy gunman.
When a disgruntled seventh-grader with a gun entered his classroom at Sparks Middle School on Monday, Landsberry rushed toward the student, attempting to shield his class and talk the gunman into dropping his weapon. Instead, the youth shot and killed Landsberry before wounding two more students and taking his own life. The news of Landsberry’s death has rocked the community of Sparks and neighboring Reno.
“In my estimation, he is a hero,” Tim Robinson, deputy chief of the Sparks police, said at an afternoon press conference. “We do know he was trying to intervene.”
CNN reports that both wounded students are in stable condition at a nearby hospital. Neither they nor the killer have been identified publicly due to their age. Authorities have, however, revealed that the 13-year-old killer used a handgun stolen from his parents' house in the shooting.
Landsberry, 45, was a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan and a member of the Nevada National Air Guard. After his career in the military, he earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Nevada, Reno, and went on to teach eighth-grade math at Sparks Middle School. Students say Landsberry was a popular figure around the school, who loved teaching and cared for his students. He was also popular as a basketball coach and reportedly allowed students to rub his bald head for luck before games.
"It's very unfortunate that (the life of) someone like that, who protected our country over there and came back alive ... had to be taken at his work, at a school," Sparks Mayor Geno Martini told CNN. "It's very devastating."
