MATTOON, Illinois -- Officials praised the quick reaction of a high school teacher who subdued a gun-wielding student inside the Mattoon High School cafeteria after “numerous rounds” were fired Wednesday morning, injuring at least two students.
Mattoon Police Chief Jeff Branson cited the female teacher’s intervention as being pivotal in the quick response.
“She’s been trained obviously, but in these scenarios, you just don’t know what’s going to happen until it happens,” Branson said during a press conference Wednesday night. “Had the teacher not responded as quickly as she had I think the situation would have been a lot different.”
Branson said two students were injured during the shooting in the cafeteria. Officials immediately attended to one of them.
“Officers located another student in the parking lot of the school and attention was given to him by the school nurse and later transported to Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center by medical personnel,” said Branson. “I was advised on scene by the nurse that he was in stable condition, and had received what appeared to be, for sure, one gunshot, potentially two gunshot wounds.”
Mattoon Schools Superintendent Larry Lilly said that just before the press conference he had visited the other student at the hospital.
“With permission from his father, I can share his son is smiling, in stable condition, in good spirits and joked about catching some slack on his grades,” said Lilly.
According to the superintendent, the shooting occurred around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Branson added that Mattoon police were notified at 11:32 a.m. and upon arrival found the suspected shooter in the school resource officer’s custody.
“We feel like we’ve got the only shooter and participant in custody,” said Branson. “We’re pretty confident it was one individual.”
Coles County State’s Attorney Brian Bower declined to disclose the name of the teacher who subdued the shooter, as well as the alleged shooter and victims, citing confidentiality requirements.
But according to Skye Arthur, of Mattoon, one injured student was her son, Braeton Davis, a 16-year-old junior. He was grazed by a bullet across the knuckles and treated by a medic at Riddle Elementary School, where the high school students were taken after the shooting.
“He saw the gunman and the gun but I think it happened so fast, he didn’t know who it was,” Arthur said in a phone interview. “He said he first heard the initial pop and thought it was a balloon and then he heard it another 3-5 times and that’s when everyone started running.”
Scott Bitting said he received an email Wednesday morning from the district explaining there had been an apparent shooting just after getting off work at a local factory. Bitting texted his daughter, a junior at MHS, and rushed to the school.
“I blew every stoplight there was,” said Bitting, who works third shift at LSC Communications, formerly R.R. Donnelley. “I just flew.”
Bitting hadn’t reunited with his daughter, Madison, who was last year crowned Miss Teen Bagelfest, as of Wednesday afternoon. Instead, as he approached the school, he saw a need to help and direct the otherwise chaotic scene.
Joining him were Shon and Kendra Allsop, who own Shon’s Tear and Repair, a small engine service shop at the corner of 26th and Marshall Avenue. The Allsops also helped direct traffic after a sheriff deputy’s vehicle was involved in a wreck one block west, the cause of which was not immediately clear Wednesday afternoon.
“At first, we were just sitting here watching the chaos but then this being the only through street (to the school), we saw that wreck so my brother and I ran down there,” said Allsop. “There was another guy and he said, ‘You need a vest?’ So he gave me that orange vest and I hopped out there.”
In between directing vehicles, the Allsops decided to turn their business sign into a marker guiding parents to Riddle.
“It was weird,” said Allsop, who has three children who attend Riddle Elementary. “As a human, you’re just kind of scared for everybody else. As a business, you have to do what you have to do.
“That’s what you’re supposed to do as a community,” added Allsop, who was joined by the owners of Crossfit Mattoon gym, just across Marshall Avenue to the south, Mike and Mindy Houser, who saw the scene unfold earlier.
“About 11:30 a.m., we saw five police cars go flying by and within a minute we heard kids screaming and running past this way and past that way,” said Mike Houser, who moved to Mattoon a year ago from Sullivan. “Then we walked out and started trying to calm the kids and kind of find out what happened. They said they were told to go to Riddle, so we started telling all the kids we saw go to Riddle.
Like the Allsops, the Housers also helped direct traffic and posted signs directing parents to the pickup point.
“Us and the other business put up signs saying, ‘Kids are that way,’ because it got a little bit crazy at this corner within 15-20 minutes. And parents were panicking, which I can understand,” said Houser.
Recognizing some of the students as gym members’ children, the Housers then started notifying parents of their safety.
“We actually were looking for them in the mass of kids and texting their parents, saying, ‘We saw your kid. We gave them a hug,’” said Houser. “As they were walking by, we let their parents know ‘Hey your kid is safe. Don’t worry.’”
One of those students was the Housers’ son, Dylan Sanders, a junior at MHS, who was in the cafeteria when the shooting occurred.
“Our son came here from the high school and he said he was three or four feet from the shooter, “added Houser. “He said he couldn’t see because there was a big concrete pillar in between. He heard the shots and they all just scattered.”
Mattoon High School student Colby Filipiak heard students running and yelling as they passed by his classroom door. The 16-year-old said that amid the confusion his teacher told everyone to run out of the building, so they quickly followed others outside.
“We probably ran four or five blocks and hid in a cornfield,” said Filipiak. “Our goal was to go as far away from the school and away from the street and open areas as we could.”
He said although he didn’t realize why they were escaping at first, it became more frightening once he realized. Once to safely in the cornfield, he called his dad, who picked him up within minutes.
“I’m more worried about those who were in the cafeteria,” said Filipiak. “I was in English class.”
Jon Taylor, who lives less than a block north of the high school on Marion Avenue, said his grandson, Malachi Watkins, was also in the high school during the shooting but that he was not harmed.
“I was mowing and all of a sudden a bunch of kids came down this alley running that way,” said Taylor. “None of them stopped and said anything. They were going pretty quick.”
Taylor’s granddaughter, Makayla, graduated from Mattoon last year and said locating her brother at Riddle was a big relief.
“We just bum-rushed him and were freaking out, like, ‘Thank god you’re OK.’ Because he wasn’t answering his phone,” said Watkins.
“I feel sick,” she added. “Because I just (graduated) and I know everyone in this school. I visit it often. I know the faculty and all the students. I wanted everyone to be OK.”
According to Bower, a “petition was filed relating to the shooting at Mattoon High School” Wednesday, though the contents and nature of the petition were not made clear.
With the investigation set to last at least several weeks as more than 200 students are expected to be interviewed, Mattoon residents were in disbelief in the hours that immediately followed the shooting.
“This isn’t something that is supposed to happen here,” said Allsop. “This is what you hear about on the news. This is big city stuff. To us, this is a small town.”
“You hear people say that they never think it would happen in your city, you think it happens in big cities,” added Houser. “Compared to Sullivan, Mattoon is a much bigger city, but it’s still not something you’d expect in a town of 18,000 people.”
Contact Keith Stewart at [email protected] or 217-347-7151, ext. 132. Contact Dawn Schabbing at [email protected] or 217-347-7151, ext. 138.
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