Post date: Aug 23, 2013 2:2:45 PM
911 tapes from school shooting in Georgia reveal how school bookkeeper helped suspect surrender.
DECATUR, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 20, 2013) (NBC) - A woman credited with convincing a gunman holed up in an Atlanta area school to put down his assault rifle and surrender to police says the man was suicidal and preparing to die in a bloodbath before she talked him out of it.
Tuff's account was borne out by the 911 recording of the call she made from the school during the incident that was released by police on Wednesday (August 21).Tuff can clearly be heard calmly talking Hill out of causing harm and reassuring him that giving up was the right thing to do.
"It's going to be all right sweetheart," she told him as he discarded his weapon, emptied his pockets and waited for police to enter the school.
"I just want you to know that I love you though, and I'm proud of you," she added before police entered the building and arrested him without a struggle.
Tuff was sitting in the front office of the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy when Michael Brandon Hill, 20, walked in brandishing his AK-47 rifle.
Hill had already shot at police outside the school, and fired off one round inside the office, before she talked him into surrendering.
The 20-year-old, apparently suffering from a mental disorder, told Tuff he "felt hopeless" and said he had not taken his medication, she said.
Apart from trying to bond with Hill, she said her priority was to ensure that he stayed inside the office with her, so no harm would come to others including the school's 800 students.
At one point, the recently divorced mother of two said Hill, sitting directly across from her in the office, began methodically loading AK-47 magazines that he pulled out of a book bag he was carrying along with spare ammunition.
Police said on Wednesday that Hill was carrying 500 rounds.
Tuff said she persuaded Hill to put down his gun and all the ammunition he was carrying. He then lay face down on the floor so police could come in and arrest him, she said.
After the police entered, Tuff broke down on the phone saying, "Oh Jesus!" The police dispatcher told her : "You did great."
The incident at the Georgia elementary school came less than a year after a heavily armed gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,Connecticut, killing 20 children and six adults.
Hill faces numerous charges including aggravated assault on a police officer and making terror-related threats.
President Barack Obama called Tuff to "thank her for the courage she displayed" while talking to the gunman, the White House said on Thursday (August 22).