High school football star tackles girl with gun on school bus

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 2:16pm

He sounds like a great kid:

A Mississippi high school football player is being hailed as a hero for saving a school bus full of elementary and high school students from a gun-wielding girl
Surveillance camera footage on the Yazoo County school bus on Tuesday captured 18-year-old Kaleb Eulls tackling the 14-year-old girl while the children evacuated the bus.

Eulls managed to wrestle the .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun from her, Yazoo County Sheriff Thomas Vaughan told CNN.

Eulls was asleep with headphones in his ears when the 14-year-old girl rose from her seat with a weapon in her hand, he told CNN's "American Morning."

"One of my sisters woke me up and said, 'Kaleb, the girl has a gun,' " he said.

Twenty-two children ages 5 to 18 were on the bus to Linwood Elementary, Yazoo County Junior High and Yazoo County High schools when the incident began, Vaughan said.

The girl started pacing the aisle, shouting and pointing the gun, threatening to shoot those she accused of teasing her, Eulls said.

At one point, the bus driver calmly called her up to the front and attempted to talk her down. But she returned to the middle of the bus and resumed shouting -- most of which is inaudible on the footage, except for the comment, "Don't talk to me."

That's when Eulls, a 6-foot-4-inch, 255-pound high school senior who has verbally committed to play for Mississippi State University after graduation, went into action.

"I just tried to get her to focus directly on me, just point the gun at me, so I would know she's not pointing it at anyone else besides me," he said.

"And in a split second, I guess she just looked off the bus or flinched or blinked, and I knew that would be my only chance, and I just went at her."

The defensive end and quarterback, recognized as one of the best players in the state by The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, tackled the girl to the floor and took the gun from her.

"After I got the gun loose, I told my bus driver that I had it, and I ran out the back of the bus with it and disarmed it," he said.

The girl was arrested and taken into custody as a juvenile. She faces 22 counts of attempted aggravated assault, 22 counts of kidnapping and one count of possession of a firearm on school property because the bus is leased by the school district, Vaughan said.

Everyone else, including Eulls, continued on to school, where he received a hero's welcome, Vaughan said.


More at cnn.com

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 2:18pm

I read this as a high school football star with a gun tackles a girl on a school bus.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 2:20pm

I Don't Like Mondays

[Unknown User]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 2:44pm

Was she a Homecoming queen? If so there might be a song in it.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 2:48pm

No, she was picked on.

But then, so was Carrie...

[bdwaygirl]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 2:48pm

How much you want to bet her parents sue him, the bus company and the school for whatever pain/injury he might have inflicted on her in the tussle?

[EVIE]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 3:11pm

bdwaygirl I thought the same thing! How horrible. He is an incredibly brave kid, I'm sure his parents are extremely proud and grateful he and his siblings (and the other kids) are safe.

[winston89]

Posted: 9/4/09 at 4:04pm

He does deserve the hero's welcome he is got. However, he doesn't deserve to be sued by the girls folks or by anyone for that matter.