Barely two days ago, their paths crossed in the worst possible
circumstances -- a man armed with an assault rifle had entered
Antoinette Tuff's school, and she called police.
On Thursday, Tuff and
Kendra McCray, the 911 dispatcher on the other end of that line, were
together again, sharing an emotional hug and tears before sitting down
to recount the episode with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
"We made it!" Tuff joyfully declared, with McCray responding, "We did."
The atmosphere for the
reunion was starkly different than their original encounter as voices on
opposite ends of a telephone line.
hat happened at 12:51
p.m. Tuesday when, according to DeKalb County, Georgia, Police
Department spokeswoman Mekka Parrish, authorities got their first call
about a shooting at the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in
Decatur, just outside Atlanta.
Shortly before that, the
gunman had slipped into the school and gone into its main office, where
he shot one round into the ground.
"I knew then that it was for real," recalled Tuff, who was in there with him. "And that I could lose my life."
It was then that Tuff,
bookkeeper in that school's front office, dialed 911. But she wasn't the
only person that could be heard a few miles away at police dispatch --
at times, there was the voice of the suspect, later identified as
Michael Brandon Hill, in the background.
The gunman used Tuff as a
conduit to relay information to police, which in this case meant
McCray, who took Tuff's call at the dispatch center.
In their voices, both
women sounded calm throughout the call -- even as gunshots were ringing
out around Tuff, and later when the suspect reached into a bag to reload
his AK-47-type assault rifle.
But inside, they now admit, they were terrified.
McCray recalled Thursday
how her hands were shaking, though she knew that she couldn't reveal
her fears in her voice. And Tuff said she was trying to incorporate the
lessons she'd learned in church to stay strong for herself, the 800-plus
elementary school students in the classrooms behind her -- and for the
gunman whom she came to feel for.
"I was actually praying on the inside," she recalled. "I was terrified, but I just started praying."
Early in the call, Tuff
was blunt in what amounted to a vital assessment of the situation: "He
doesn't want the kids. He wants the police. So back off," she told
McCray. In the next breath, Tuff asked him, "And what else sir?"
The suspect darted from
the office to outside a few times, becoming particularly "agitated" in
Tuff's words when police fired back with bullets "coming from
everywhere."
"And I said to him, come
back in here right now," said the school bookkeeper, who admitted she
had to go "to the bathroom so bad" the entire ordeal. "... Don't worry
about it, stay with me, we're both going to be safe," she told the man.
The scariest moment,
Tuff said, came when -- after having fired shots, several times, at
police positioned outside -- the suspect went into his bag, reloaded his
gun and packed his pants and jacket pockets with yet more bullets.
"I knew when he made the last call that he was going to go," she recalled on CNN. "Because he had loaded up to go."
But the tone changed over the next few frenetic minutes, much like what was happening at the school.
In the beginning, the
gunman appeared "like he didn't care," giving the impression that he'd
come "in purposely knowing that he was going to die and take lives with
him," said Tuff. But his language, and actions, softened -- and so did
Tuff's feelings for him.
"I really began to feel
sorry for him," she told Cooper, adding that the suspect told her he was
off his medication and considering suicide. "I knew that where he was
at mentally was not a good place. But I knew that he was there, for
whatever particular reason, in life."
The man with the rifle
eventually let it be known, via Tuff, that he was no longer threatening
to shoot any police officers who approached; by then, he was
communicating with them about where he should put his gun, where he
should get down on the ground in surrender, and how police would come
and get him.
As all of this unfolded,
the dispatcher talking to Tuff largely remained silent -- except a few
brief acknowledgments about what she'd heard and the constant clatter of
her keyboard.
In her heart and behind
the scenes, though, McCray was sweating it out. Thankfully, she had a
"true hero" partner in Tuff who, with her clear descriptions and calm
demeanor, made it so the call-taker and thus police could very easily
"visualize what she was seeing and what she was going through."
Even to the end,
emotions ran high. The suspect started getting "agitated" after he'd
decided to surrender, standing back up and taking a drink of water
because police had yet to come and get him.
Recognizing what was happening, McCray said she put her phone on mute.
"I'm hollering across the (dispatch) room: 'Hey, he's getting agitated, we need to move.'"
They did get inside the Decatur school in a flurry soon thereafter, surrounding and detaining Hill.
That was then, finally, both Tuff and McCray could breathe a sigh of relief.
"You did great," McCray said to Tuff 31 long minutes after that first call came in. "You did great."
Hill, meanwhile, was
swiftly taken away by law enforcement officers and now sits in a Georgia
jail awaiting charges that likely will include aggravated assault on a
police officer, making terroristic threats and false imprisonment,
according to authorities.
Tuff would like to visit him, calling him a "hurting soul" who she'd like to help.
"We all go through
something," she said, with her 911 call reflecting on her challenges
raising a disabled child and suicidal thoughts after the end of her
marriage after more than two decades. "And I believe that God gives us a
purpose in life."
And Tuff believes she
was meant to be at McNair on Tuesday, even though she'd originally been
scheduled to be off. She thinks she was meant to be up front to first
encounter the gunman -- in that location at that time because she'd been
delayed from going back to her desk. She said it was all part of God's
plan -- for her, for the suspect and for McNair's students.
But that doesn't mean
Tuff knew she had it in her, to face down a gunman and potential death
so calmly, and to live to tell about it.
"No, no. If somebody
would have told me that I was going to be doing that that day, I
wouldn't have believed it," she told CNN. "God has a way of showing you
what's really in you."
Tweet Follow @punshcomempower
50% off Hosting for your Website at GoDaddy.com!
It's a BIG Deal! $5.99* .COM from GoDaddy.com!
It's a BIG Deal! $5.99* .COM from GoDaddy.com!
Host a site without stress on namecheap eApps|YOUR APP HOSTING PROVIDER
Submit your Website
Free webmaster resources including SEO Tools, Computer Glossary, Templates Sign up to BIGTIMEBUX today!
0 comments:
Post a Comment