Illinois Native Credited With Disarming Indiana School Shooter

NOBLESVILLE, IN — Parents at an Indiana middle school were crediting a seventh-grade teacher and football coach with disarming the student shooter. According to some parents at Noblesville West Middle School, Illinois native and former Southern Illinois University football player Jason Seaman is the teacher who was wounded while intervening.

Indiana State Police and Noblesville police declined to name the victims, citing privacy concerns, and would not confirm whether a teacher was the one who stopped the shooter, who was taken into custody.

Seaman issued a statement Friday afternoon.

"Thank you to all the first responders from Noblesville and Fishers for their immediate action and care. I want to let everyone know I am injured but am doing great," the teacher said in a statement he issued through WTHR in Indianapolis. "To all the students, you are all wonderful and I thank you for your support. You are the reason I teach."

The Saluki Football Twitter account identified Seaman as the heroic teacher on Friday afternoon. "He took a bullet this morning to protect his students," the Salukis tweeted.

In another tweet, the school said despite being shot three times, he was able to stop the shooter, according to Seaman's mother.

Seaman is a 2011 graduate of SIU and has been with Noblesville West since 2014, according to his LinkedIn page. Prior to SUI he attended school in the Mahomet-Seymour Community Unit School District in Champaign County.

His mother shared updates on Facebook saying her son was shot in the abdomen, hip and forearm. "Jason is out of surgery and is doing well," she wrote. "PLEASE pray for the student that was also shot."

Mahomet-Seymour Superintendent Lindsey Hall called Seaman "an amazing kid," according to the News-Gazette. A district P.E. teacher wasn't surprised to learn of his former student's heroism. "My first reaction was, ‘He stopped it,’” Chad Benedict, said, calling Seaman selfless. "That was my assumption without even getting any of the details because that’s just who he is."

Several media outlets, including IndyStar, reported that parents and students said Seaman stopped the middle school gunman.

"Mr. Seaman started running at him, he’s a teacher, a science teacher — he tackled him to the ground, we were all hiding in the back of a classroom behind some desks, then he was yelling to call 911 to get out of the building as fast as we could, so we ran down the stairs and just ran down here," a student told CBS4 in Indianapolis. "He's a hero."

During a press conference Friday afternoon, police in Noblesville said the suspected shooter asked to be excused from class at around 9 a.m., returning with two handguns and opening fire.

Police would only say a student and teacher were wounded in the shooting and taken to an Indianapolis hospital in critical condition. Media outlets reported that the student victim was a 13-year-old girl.

The shooting prompted a response from Vice President Mike Pence, the former governor of Indiana, who tweeted that he and his wife were praying for Noblesville.

Noblesville is a town of about 60,000 people just north of Indianapolis.

The Indiana school shooting comes exactly a week after a student opened fire at Santa Fe High School near Houston, killing 10 people and wounding more than a dozen. On Valentine's Day, a former student armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 and wounding many more.

Photo: A student and adult embrace outside Noblesville West Middle School after a shooting at the school on May 25, 2018 in Noblesville, Indiana. (Photo by Kevin Moloney/Getty Images)