The audio is now available of the 911 call made by school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff from the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Center in Decatur, Georgia as she talked a would-be school shooter into laying down his arms.
On Tuesday, 20-year-old Michael Brandon Hill walked into the school with an AK-47, fired a round into the floor and said that he was prepared to die. Ms. Tuff convinced the disturbed man to rethink his plan to die and take out as many other people as he could.
Talking between the 911 dispatcher and the gunman, Tuff kept the situation calm and engineered a conclusion where no one was hurt or killed.
She convinced Hill to take the ammunition out of his backpack and pockets, lie down on the floor and surrender to police.
"We all go through something in life," she told him, explaining that she has a "multiple-disabled" son and lost her husband after 33 years of marriage.
“We not going to hate you, baby," she told him. "It’s a good thing that you’re giving up, so we’re not going to hate you.”
"Just sit there calm," she said to Hill as she buzzed the police in through the school's front doors. "I'm going to sit right here so they'll see you're trying not to harm me."
"It's going to be alright, sweetheart. I just want you to know that I love you and I'm proud of you," she said. "That's a good thing, that you're just giving up and don't worry about it."
Hill was taken into custody without incident.
“I’ve never been so scared in all the days of my life. Oh, Jesus,” Tuff told the 911 dispatcher when the incident was over.
Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak called Tuff's handling of the incident "a portrait of poise, compassion and selflessness."
Listen to the call, embedded below via Post TV:
