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Incredible video shows moment HS coach disarms student with shotgun — and embraces him with bear hug
Image via Twitter @DanTilkinKOIN6 screenshot

Incredible video shows moment HS coach disarms student with shotgun — and embraces him with bear hug

'I felt compassion for him'

Newly released surveillance footage shows the moment an Oregon high school coach disarmed a shotgun-wielding student — and embraced him with a hug, compassion, and empathy.

The video shows student Angel Granados-Diaz walking into a building at the Portland-area Parkrose High School with a shotgun hidden underneath a long coat on May 17, 2019. Then video shows the moment football coach Keanon Lowe, who also works as a security guard at the school, confronted the student.

Lowe said he had been called to the school's fine-arts building to get a student, according to KOIN-TV.

I walk in there, I get to the classroom, I'm in the classroom for 15, 20 seconds — you know, I ask the teacher, 'Is the student here?

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," Lowe said. "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.

I lunged for the gun, put two hands on the gun. He had his two hands on the gun and obviously the kids are running out of the classroom and screaming.

The video shows Lowe hand the shotgun to another teacher while embracing Granados-Diaz.

"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," Lowe said.

"I just wanted to let him know that I was there for him. I told him I was there to save him. I was there for a reason and that this is a life worth living," he explained after the incident, NBC News reported.

Police later arrived to the school after it went on lockdown. No one was injured in the incident.

Prosecutors said Granados-Diaz brought the gun to school during a "mental health crisis" and that he never intended to use it on anyone other than himself. Only one shotgun shell was loaded into the firearm.

Granados-Diaz pleaded guilty on Oct. 10 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," KOIN reported.

A judge sentenced the teen to 36 months probation and mental health treatment, and substance abuse treatment because he was drunk at the time of the incident.

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