Wounded Teacher Ran After US School Shooter, Swatted Gun Out Of His Hand

Agencies
May 26, 2018

Washington, May 26: A teacher at an Indiana middle school where a student opened fire with two handguns is being hailed as a hero after reportedly helping to subdue the shooter in his classroom.

Jason Seaman, 29, a former football player at Southern Illinois University and a 13-year-old female student were wounded by gunfire in the shooting, which broke out around 9 a.m. on Friday morning at a middle school in Noblesville, a town of 62,000 just northeast of Indianapolis.

Police said that a student asked to be excused from class at Noblesville West Middle School and then returned with two handguns and opened fire.

Students and parents of students from the school told news outlets that Seaman helped stop the shooter.

"Our science teacher immediately ran at him, swatted a gun out of his hand and tackled him to the ground," Seventh-grader Ethan Stonebraker told the Associated Press. "If it weren't for him, more of us would have been injured for sure."

Stonebraker described the incident in more detail to ABC News, saying that Seaman threw a basketball at the shooter.

"Immediately Mr. Seaman was yelling and running right at him and tackled him to the ground," Ethan said. "I was trying to stay crouched behind the back table, but also see what's going on and that's when [Mr. Seaman] was running right at him with this arms in front of him, and then he just tackled him against the wall. Then they were on the ground after [Mr. Seaman] swatted the gun from him and he just laid on the shooter so he couldn't do anything."

Police said they arrested the shooter and said the "situation resolved fairly quickly," but did not confirm the accounts of Seaman's reaction or details about how they arrested the shooter. A police officer assigned to the school was on duty and in the building, they said.

"Wait 'til one day we can tell you that story," Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said, according to the AP. "You'll be proud of them, too."

Seaman released a statement published by local media outlets, thanking the police and emergency responders for their action and care.

"I want to let everyone know that I was injured but am doing great," the statement said. "To all students, you are all wonderful and I thank you for your support. You are the reason I teach."

His mother, Kristi J. Hubly Seaman, said in a Facebook post that he had been shot three times: once through the abdomen, and one on his hip and forearm. Police said Seaman was in good condition as of Friday night; the injured student, who has not been publicly identified was in critical condition.

The attack comes a week after another school shooter killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School in Texas, which has contributed to the long-simmering debate about gun violence and gun control.

Seaman's brother, Jeremy, told the IndyStar that Seaman had two young children. He said he wasn't surprised by the reports of his brother's bravery.

"It's not surprising, to be honest," he said. "He's not really ever been the person to run away."

Seaman played for Southern Illinois from 2007 to 2010 as a defensive end, notching 88 tackles and eight sacks with two forced fumbles in 47 games for the Salukis. He was a three-sport athlete when he attended high school in Mahomet, Ill. Jeremy told the newspaper.

"He's familiar with struggle and adversity," he said.

Nick Hill, who is the head coach at Southern Illinois and played as a teammate of Seaman's, said he was a "great teammate, one of the team's hardest workers."

"You could always trust him to do the right thing," Hill said.

Gov. Eric Holcomb, R, released a statement saying his "thoughts are with all those affected by this horrible situation."

Molly Miles, a Noblesville High School freshman, told the IndyStar that she remembered Seaman telling the class that he would keep them safe in the event of a shooting.

"I especially remember that he would throw himself on top of the shooter if he had to," she said. "Which he proved today. He always said that he was willing to sacrifice himself before he was willing to let anything happen to his students."

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Agencies
May 17,2020

New Delhi, May 17: With the highest-ever spike of close to 5,000 cases in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 count in India has crossed 90,000 on Sunday.

With an increase of 4,987 COVID-19 cases being reported in the last 24 hours, the count has reached 90,927, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total number of active cases in the country stands at 53,946 today, while 2,872 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far, with one patient having migrated. 120 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

However, on the positive side, close to 4,000 patients have also been cured and discharged in the past 24 hours, taking the tally of cured patients to 34,108.

With 30,706 confirmed cases, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected by the infection in the country.

It is followed by Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, with 10,988 and 10,585 cases, respectively.
The national capital, with 9,333 cases, is also one of the regions which is badly affected by the infection.

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News Network
March 11,2020

New Delhi, Mar 11: Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Madhya Pradesh politician whose surprise exit from the Congress has brought the Kamal Nath government to the brink of collapse, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday. Scindia joined the BJP at an event in national capital Delhi in the presence of party chief JP Nadda.

Scindia, who was warmly welcomed by Nadda, described 10 March, the day that he exited from the Congress as one of the two life-changing days of his life. The first, he said, was 30 September 2001 when he lost his father. Scindia underscored that the Congress was not the party that it had been and had been living in denial.

Scindia had ended his 18-year-old association with the Congress on Tuesday after meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Scindia’s exit from the Congress was followed by resignation letters by about 22 MLAs who had been sequestered in Karnataka. The resignation letters were, however, sent to the Governor and not the assembly speaker, and threatens to upend the Kamal Nath government which has a wafer-thin majority.

If the resignations are accepted, the effective strength of the MP assembly will come down to 206, leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with a slender majority beyond the halfway mark of 103 with its 107 MLAs. For now, the Congress is trying to persuade the MLAs to not pull down the state government.

In his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi that Scindia put out on Twitter soon after, he alluded to his discomfort in the party over the last year or so. “...as you well know, this is a path that has been drawing itself out over the last year,” he had written in his letter.

It was seen as a reference to the Congress settling for Kamal Nath as the chief minister after the 2018 state elections though it was Scindia who had led from the front to oust the BJP from Madhya Pradesh. Scindia’s supporters had hoped that the Congress would tell Kamal Nath to give up his second charge - as the party chief in the state - but this also didn’t happen.

The first hint that something was amiss came in November last year when Scindia removed a reference to the Congress in his Twitter bio and instead wrote “public servant and cricket enthusiast”. He had then explained the change to an effort to make the Twitter bio shorter.

Jyotyiraditya Scindia’s aunt Yashodhara Raje Scindia appeared to declare soon after that the 49-year-old would join the BJP when she welcomed his resignation, calling it “ghar wapsi” or homecoming. “Jyotiraditya was being neglected in Congress,” Yashodhara Raje Scindia said.

Scindia’s grandmother, Vijaya Raje Scindia, was one of the founders of the Jana Sangh, the precursor to the BJP. His aunt Vasundhara Raje is a former Union minister and ex-chief minister of Rajasthan and another aunt Yashodhara Raje is a former minister in the Madhya Pradesh cabinet.

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News Network
March 5,2020

Lucknow, Mar 5: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said last night that the role of teachers would come under the scanner when "anti-India" slogans are raised at universities and institutions of higher education.

"When anti-India slogans are raised at institutions of higher education, we should be prepared to ask why this type of distortion occurrs among our students?" he said at a programme organised by the Basic Shiksha Parishad in Lucknow.

"We begin our work with pledge for the country's unity and integrity and today slogans are raised for the division of the nation. In such a situation, questions are raised over the role of teachers who are considered equal to god in society," he said.

"Who all are involved in this sin and chaos? Governments can provide resources, but the one who has given them basic education, who has given them secondary education and who has led them to that place, all of them should evaluate their actions today," the chief minister said.

Speaking about the condition of education in the state when his government came to power three years ago, he said there was an atmosphere of chaos and anarchy in the state and the condition of basic education was very bad.

"The worst problem was that of proxy teachers. Our government started the process of prohibiting proxy teachers in the first phase," he said.

Adityanath said that a teacher is not just a government servant, but the fate of the nation. He said teachers should learn from Chanakya.

Had Chanakya confined himself to Nalanda University, he would not have been able to make India a superpower of the world during that period. Teachers will have to prepare themselves according to the challenges and need of society, he added.

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