Freeman High School Shooting Victim Remembered As 'True Hero'

SPOKANE, WA — The Freeman High School student who died Wednesday while trying to stop a gunman at his school is being remembered as a "true hero." But Strahan's death was the second tragedy for his family in recent months: Sam's father, Scott, died on June 18.

On Wednesday, members of Strahan's family established a GoFundMe fundraiser to help the family recover from this second tragedy. Sam's sister, Emily, is entering her sophomore year at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"Still grief stricken from the loss of my younger brother earlier this year, now I learned today that my nephew Sam was killed in this shooting at his high school when he tried to intervene to stop the shooter," Eric Strahan wrote on the fundraiser page.

The shooting at Freeman High School began at around 10 a.m. Wednesday when a sophomore — identified by witnesses as Caleb Sharpe — opened fire in a hallway on the second floor of the school. Sam Strahan, 15, reportedly confronted the gunman to stop the shooting but was killed. Three others students were wounded, but were reportedly in satisfactory condition Thursday at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

The shooting ended when the gunman was confronted by a school janitor.

On Thursday, the Spokane County Sheriff's office said the shooter planned the attack in advance, and was carrying a pistol and an assault-style weapon.

"The deceased, a 15 year-old male, contacted the suspect, also a 15 year old male. The suspect then pulled the handgun from his waistband and shot the deceased twice. The suspect then started shooting indiscriminately, seriously injuring three other students before a custodian at the school approached him and ordered him to surrender. Those students were all female; two are 14 years of age and one is 15 years old. Shortly after that, the deputy, who was at the middle school, arrived and took the shooter into custody," the sheriff's office said in an update Thursday.

Strahan's classmates remembered the teen as kind and the sophomore class clown. One classmate told KUOW a funny story about Strahan, how one day he brought soup for lunch, but instead of a spoon, he ate the whole meal with a fork.

"Later that day I was scrolling on some kind of social media, and I found a quote that said, 'life is a bowl of soup and I’m a fork,'" Kelby Cochrane told KUOW.

Photo (l to r): Sam Strahan, father Scott Strahan and sister Emily Strahan

Image via GoFundMe