When gunfire shattered a routine Mass marking the first week of class at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, middle school students were among those who acted heroically, according to an emergency official, a principal and a parent whose children attend the school.
As a lone shooter carried out a mass shooting that killed two children and injured 15 other children and three adults, children were protecting other children.
"We had one kid that covered up another kid and took a shotgun blast to his back," Marty Scheerer, chief of Hennepin Emergency Medical Services, said on Thursday.
The students had been among the pews at Annunciation Church on Wednesday when gunfire erupted and plunged the Mass into chaos and bloodshed.
Annunciation Catholic School principal Matthew DeBoer also credited older children and staff members with saving lives. Adults moved students under the pews "within seconds" of the shooting, he said.
"Adults were protecting children, older children were protecting younger children," he said. "It could have been significantly worse without their heroic actions."
Sheerer added: "The teachers were amazing. The teachers were getting shot at. They were protecting the kids."
The injured children are between 6 and 15 years old.
How a "buddy system" saved lives
Bigger kids were able to quickly help little ones in the church because many of them had been paired together in a buddy system, says Michael Burt, a parent whose family has five kids at Annunciation Catholic School. He says it's a tradition at the school, meant to help younger students learn how to get around the campus, and how to behave during services.
"So for instance, seventh graders get, say, a third and a first grader, and they walk to church, school Mass, with each buddy [holding] a hand, and they sit next to them in church, teach them how to do church," he says.
Then someone started shooting.
"The first action by those middle schoolers was to push their buddies down under the pew," Burt says. "Which is why the middle schoolers were the ones that were standing the longest and were largely the injured, acting in heroism … and then covering the little ones under the pews."
The two children who were killed were 8 and 10 years old, according to Minneapolis city officials. Burt says they were a girl and a boy, and his kids were friends with them.
"I can tell you that all the kids at the school are kids to all of us," he says. "They are amazing human beings, amazing people in our community. And their kids will be mourned by all of us."
As he and other parents come to terms with the tragedy, Burt says, they're encouraging their kids to spend time together, and to talk with counselors. They also grapple with hard questions — about why a place of sanctuary for their community was attacked, and why his daughter has now lost one of her best friends.
"My daughter was telling me stories as we were going to bed last night of sleepovers they've had, and goofiness of fifth grade girls," he says. "Just, makeup gone wrong, and staying up late, and watching movies and snacking. That's what their relationship was. And this girl will be remembered as a larger than life personality of joy."
Burt says he feels blessed to be part of a community that comes together to offer support. And he says that while he's glad so many people have opened their homes and churches to the victims, the families who are part of Annunciation's school and church will return to their community when they're able.
"Without a doubt, everybody will be back. Everybody will walk through those doors, hugging each other."
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