Principal Tackles Armed Ex-Student, Halts Shooting Plan

Pauls Valley, Oklahoma – Principal Kirk Moore of Pauls Valley High School tackled an armed former student in the school's lobby on April 7, preventing what authorities described as a planned mass shooting and sustaining a gunshot wound to his leg in the process.

Surveillance footage released this week captures the rapid sequence of events around 2:20 p.m., when 20-year-old Victor Hawkins entered the building after someone held the door open for him. Hawkins, a former student at the school, carried two semiautomatic handguns he had taken from his father without permission, according to investigators. The video shows him pointing one weapon at students in the lobby and attempting to fire, but the gun jammed. As Hawkins worked to clear the malfunction and aimed at another person on a bench, Moore burst from a nearby door, charged across the room, and tackled him onto the seating area against the wall.

The struggle unfolded in seconds, with the gun pointed at Moore's head at one point before he wrestled it away. Another staff member arrived quickly, kicked the weapon aside, and helped restrain Hawkins until police arrived. No students were physically harmed, though one had pleaded...