Slain teacher hailed as hero in latest US school shooting
Print Edition
A US middle school teacher who served two tours with the National Guard in Afghanistan was being hailed as a hero for trying to protect students from a shooting witnessed by up to 30 children.
Police said a Sparks Middle School student was the lone gunman who injured two young classmates, killed himself and shot dead the 8th-grade math teacher who tried to stop the rampage, Michael Landsberry, 45.
“We have a lot of heroes today, including our children ... and our fallen hero, an amazing teacher,” Washoe County School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez said.
It was no shock to family members that Landsberry — a married military veteran with two stepdaughters — would take a bullet.
“To hear that he was trying to stop that is not surprising by any means,” said Chanda Landsberry, his sister-in-law. She added his life could be summed up by his love of family, his students and his country.
On his school website, Michael Landsberry posted a picture of a brown bear and told students: “I have one classroom rule and it is very simple: ‘Thou Shall Not Annoy Mr L.’”
Sparks Mayor Geno Martini said Landsberry served two tours in Afghanistan with the Nevada National Guard and was well known in the school community.
“He proudly served his country and was proudly defending the students at his school,” he said.
Sparks, a city of 90,000 that sprung out of the railway industry, lies just east of Reno. Students were filing off buses and reuniting with friends after a weeklong vacation when the pop of gunfire shattered the morning calm. Children fled for their lives before the first bell rang.
Authorities did not provide a motive for the shooting, and it’s not known where the shooter got the gun. The two 12-year-old wounded students were listed in stable condition. One was shot in the shoulder, and the other in the abdomen.
Parents clung to their teary-eyed children at an evacuation center, while the community struggled to make sense of the latest episode of schoolyard violence to rock the nation less than a year after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
In December a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, leaving 26 dead.
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