By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

TAFT, Calif. – A teacher at Taft Union High School proved this week that teachers can be heroes in more ways than one.

Just weeks after the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre rocked the nation, a 16-year-old student walked into the science building at the California school around 9 a.m. yesterday with a 12–guage shotgun and began firing at his classmates, the Huffington Post reports.

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Sheriff Donny Youngblood told the media the student shot one of his classmates in the chest, then shot at and missed another before he was confronted by a school supervisor and a teacher – Ryan Heber, who were able to distract the shooter as about 28 students fled the classroom, the New York Daily News reports.

The school employees eventually convinced the teen to put down his weapon, which was a good thing because he had about 20 rounds left and had already called out his next target by name, officials told the media.

The student who was shot was airlifted to Kern Medical Center, and was later reported to be in stable condition. The teacher involved was treated for a minor pellet wound to the head, the Post reports.

“(They) did a great job protecting the kids,” Chief of Police Ed Whiting told reporters at a press conference.

The heroic school employees “knew not to let him leave that classroom with that shotgun,” Youngblood said, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

Police reportedly responded quickly to the school because a neighbor reported to 911 shortly before the shooting that someone had walked into the school with a gun. Interim Superintendent William McDermott said an armed resource officer is usually at the high school, but wasn’t there Thursday because he got snowed in, the Monitor reports.

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The New York Daily News reports the teen targeted students he believed bullied him in school.

“This is a tragedy, but not as bad as we think it might have been,” Youngblood said.