The heroic best friend of a 15-year-old gunman who was murdered as he tried to stop his shooting spree at a Washington high school on Wednesday and the high school custodian who eventually brought him down have been pictured.
Sam Strahan, 15, was shot in the head as he tried to persuade the shooter, named by police as Caleb Sharpe, from killing classmates at Freeman High School in Rockford, Washington, on Wednesday.
The teenager’s grieving family have revealed that Sam was still mourning the loss of his father, who died in a car accident earlier this year, when he died.
After he was killed, air force veteran turned high school custodian Joe Bowen, 42, convinced the gunman to stop shooting for long enough for him to be brought down by police.
Three other teenage girls were injured in the shooting but are all ‘doing well’ in hospital.
Both Sam and Joe, a married father-of-three, have been credited with saving lives with their efforts to stop the shooter.
Sam Strahan (left) died as he tried to stop the gunman on Wednesday. High school custodian Joe Bowen (right with his wife) was eventually able to convince the shooter to stop firing for long enough for him to be arrested
Caleb Sharpe, 15, (seen above in a YouTube video he filmed last month) is in custody. Police say he carried out the shooting in retaliation for being bullied
Sharpe was seen being escorted in to a juvenile detention center after the shooting yesterday with a shaved head
The terror began shortly after 10am when the gunman tried to open fire with the first of two weapons he had brought to school in a black duffel bag.
That weapon jammed, a happenstance which police prevented more bloodshed, and he went on the next one.
Sam, who other students said was Caleb’s ‘best friend’, approached him and tried to talk him out of the shooting spree.
‘He tried to walk up and tell him,”this isn’t what you wanna do,”‘ Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said on Wednesday.
He was coldly killed by a single bullet to the head and the gunman continued shooting before Bowen intervened.
It is not known what exactly he said to the teenager to get him to stop shooting, but police told KHQ he convinced him to stop shooting for long enough for police to arrive and arrest him.
Mr. Bowen did not respond to requests on Thursday morning.
Bowen, seen with his wife and two of his three children, was hailed a hero for stepping in to stop the shooter
Bowen’s social media pages suggest that he served in the US Air Force before he became a high school custodian. He is pictured in 2013
Students say Sharpe, 15, brought the two weapons with him to school in a black duffel bag
The shooting took place at Freeman High School in Rockford, Washington, on Wednesday at 10am
Three teenage girls were injured and were taken to the hospital where they are all now doing ‘well’
As they were being evacuated, one student shared this photograph on Twitter of her class crouching on the floor
Sheriff Knezovich previously said his efforts saved the lives of other students who were in the gunman’s firing line.
After the shooting, all of the school’s students were evacuated.
Some then named Sharpe as the shooter and described how he’d been acting strangely in the weeks which preceded the shooting.
According to some teenagers who said they were friends with him, he had been watching documentaries about other school shootings and had passed around notes threatening to ‘do something stupid’ that would get him killed.
The Breaking Bad-obsessed teen had uploaded odd videos to YouTube in which he practiced shooting with a toy gun.
On social media, he shared self-loathing posts about depression and anxiety.
He was taken into a juvenile detention center after the shooting and remains in custody.
Sam’s family is fundraising for his mother and sister. Their GoFundMe page can be found here.
Terrified students are seen being evacuated from the school shortly after the shooting
Frantic parents gathered outside the high school to wait for news behind police tape