- A middle school student started firing two handguns in the middle of class.
- There's a teacher that's being called the hero this morning...
- Melo, what's up?
- Have you seen this story on the news about
the shooting outside Indy? This dude's a hero.
- Oh, for real?
- I think you should go out there to check him out.
- You think he wants all that attention?
- Just let him know that you appreciate him—that's it.
- You think he'd wanna watch a game with me?
- [Dispatch] Active shooter, Noblesville School. Active shooter, Noblesville School.
Male, with a gun. The 1032 has a silencer on it. Second floor, second floor.
- [Police Officer 1] Dispatch, 7013, shooter is contained.
- [Police Officer 2] Dispatch, if you haven't notified other schools, lock them down.
- [Police Officer 1] Shooter is in handcuffs, weapons are secured.
- Jason Seaman. Teacher by day, football coach by night.
On May 25th, 2018, he stopped a school shooting
in his seventh grade science class.
- First off, as a person who isn't looking for attention,
nor entirely comfortable with the situation I'm currently in
- The scariest 15 seconds of his life became his 15 minutes of fame.
- My actions on that day, uh, in my mind were the only acceptable
actions I could have done given the circumstances.
- A quick-thinking science teacher is being credited with saving lives.
- Heroically confronting the student
- Just about everybody who's ever met him has come out of the woodwork now
- Ramey came up with the idea to start a GoFundMe page
- Serving as the honorary chairperson of the Indiana Derby
- Honored tonight at the Pacers' season opener
- Gave Jason Seaman a new car
- President Trump praising an Indiana teacher for stopping a school shooting
- Chicago Cubs invited Seaman to come up today
- Now has a beer named after him
- [chanting] Ja-son Sea-man!
- Not one to seek the spotlight, today science teacher
Jason Seaman couldn't avoid being the center of attention in Noblesville.
- Ever since, he's become the biggest hero in town.
- Thank you. Appreciate that.
That is the most awkward thing for me because I don't feel I did anything special.
There was a kid and kids in need of help
and to be told you're somebody special for helping a kid is absurd to me.
That's not necessary, not at all.
- Yeah, well it is to all of us.
- Thank you.
- You bet.
- She just said that every time I come in here
everybody in here wants to pay for my meal.
So that's kinda crazy to think about cuz if I look around
I see three or four faces I actually know.
I go to a restaurant expecting to pay for my own food
wanting to pay for my own food, and they don't let me.
So that's, uh...that's weird. Very weird.
- Noblesville is a typical Midwest county seat.
We are in a very, very tough league.
But they're doing well. We have a young coach. He's well-respected.
- Whenever they can get out here and just relax, they're at their best.
Cuz they have so much pressure and stress of being in middle school.
When they can put all that in the rearview and just have fun and play
they're all smiles. You can see it, and they're getting after it.
- Whoever catches it gets a Gatorade on Monday.
- [Cheering]
- Hey, got another one!
- I teach seventh-grade science at Noblesville West Middle School
and I coach the eighth grade football team.
You guys are my smelliest friends.
- Really?
- Yes. By far.
- I'm your friend?
- My smelliest friends, yes.
- If you take my first year teaching, it was a rocky road.
I was learning as I was going, and then I started to
develop my classroom personality, and that continues to change and evolve.
I try not to let the shooting affect it. Coaching—it definitely has.
Cuz I always tried to keep, you know, this barrier between myself
and the players, and I can definitely tell that this year, it's just different.
Noblesville has a lot of positives going for it.
Uh, just one dark cloud that's kinda still hovering a little bit.
- Is this really who we want to be?
A country where anybody at any time could be shot to death?
- It's happened again, uh, here in the United States—a school shooting.
- One student has been injured
- Two students were shot
- Gunshot wounds
- Two 15-year-olds dead
- The bullet came from a room attached to his dorm room
- Fired a gun in his classroom
- There have been 23 school shootings
where someone was hurt or killed so far this year
- Wake Forest University
- Lincoln High School
- Santa Fe High School
- Huffman High School
- Italy High School
- [Stoneman] Douglas High School
- Forest High School
- The list goes on and on and on
- And it wasn't even June yet.
- Of course you know of all the shootings. I mean, we hear 'em.
And you just, you know, think it's not gonna happen in little ol' Noblesville.
Well, it did.
- We have breaking news
- Breaking news from Indiana now
- Another school shooting this morning
- Take a deep breath with me on this one.
We have breaking news in the state of Indiana.
There has been a shooting at Noblesville West Middle School.
- It was just one of those days where people are gonna show up
and we were gonna take the test
and that would be that, and we'd go into the weekend.
And first hour went by fine, and second hour is when everything went down.
- The preliminary information is that a male student
asked to be excused from his class.
- He left to use the restroom. And he came back.
And my friend opened the door for him.
- He didn't come in for a solid 10 seconds.
And then as soon as he came in, shots were fired.
- The seventh-grader was armed with a pair of handguns.
He did shoot the teacher in the process as well as
a female student who is in critical condition.
- I saw Ella hit the floor, and, like, it all happened in slow motion.
And, like, nobody was standing- or like, getting down.
- The first sign that something was off was
the pressure I felt in my abdomen, um—which was the first bullet.
And that's when I saw—we just made eye contact
and he was pointing his weapon straight at me.
That's kind of where it just clicked.
And I acted. I had a basketball in my hand.
I reared back and I threw it. I threw it at him.
And it made him have to move, and that changed his aim point.
And then I just tackled him to the ground and told my students to get outta there.
- We all, like, got up super quick.
I think at that time, really reality kicked in for me.
- We're now learning how quickly the situation was contained.
- Authorities swarming the scene, students escorted on buses out to safety.
- (Dispatch) All units seen as safe. Shooter is handcuffed.
- Virtually all school shootings occur in under five minutes.
To get there this quick and to get it stopped and get him identified and down
clearly saved lives.
- Jason was a defensive lineman in an Illinois college. Big guy.
You know, because of that, perhaps, it was more instinctive to just tackle this kid
you know, and get him down. And obviously he did that.
- I don't know if it's the product of being in contact sports.
I mean, I was in wrestling. I was in football.
Basketball, the way I played it, was a contact sport.
I don't know. I've just always been a reactive person.
I don't know. I didn't think about it. I didn't make a choice. It was just what I did.
I'm a person of action.
[Shouting] I know you can run harder than that—
I know you can! I know you can run harder than that!
- It's easy to say that you would put yourself out there
and protect a kid, but it's another thing to do it.
- He put his life out to save others.
- Even after being shot, he still came back and did football with us.
- He's really open, and he's just, like, a great person.
It's just amazing what Coach Seaman did
- An amazing coach and an amazing person.
- He's just a good guy, and I appreciate him being my coach.
- Yes, I think he's a hero
- Hero is always a weird word for me. I think any time a situation is intense
and a good person does the right thing
they don't feel like they should be recognized for it because
they were just doing the right thing.
- Jason is a humble hero. He doesn't want the spotlight.
But let's be real.
He took three bullets.
His student, Ella Whistler, took seven.
Both of them are already back at school
with bullets still in their bodies.
- I had Ella all year. She's a showman at heart.
She loves to sing. She loves to dance. She loves to just have fun in that regard.
I think that was one of the hardest parts, for me.
Cuz I knew about her injuries, and I wondered if she'd get back to that.
- The clavicle was shattered, her first-second rib was fractured
and her C5 and C6 was fractured.
So it all affected the nerve damage on her whole right arm.
- My physical therapist is, like, working on my shoulder cuz all my muscles
are tight and so they're trying to loosen them up.
And the occupational's working on my hand and arm, trying to get my arms
straight and my hand back to 100 percent function.
There's a chance that my hand won't get back to 100 percent.
- Yeah. You remember what else we're always worried about.
Cuz the bullet moved. The bullet moved closer to your spinal cord.
- I mean, the debate on firearms is always going to rage on
because it's a personal opinion. And when
people get into personal opinions, there's never a winner.
There's no common ground because everybody wants to win.
Do I think putting more guns in the school will help solve the problem? Probably not.
I've only experienced what happened to me.
I think we have to treat each other better if we really wanna get
at the heart of the problem. And that is a whole different ballgame.
- We are here tonight to pay tribute to the many who have gave
selflessly on May 25 and the following weeks.
Today, Noblesville says thank you to all of our heroes, big and small.
[Applause]
- [Chanting] One, two, three, FAMILY!
[Cheering]
- Nothin' is gonna light a fire faster than a big return.
OK? A big return. We worked on it yesterday.
Whoever catches it, everybody else get in front of him and block like crazy.
Let's score points on the first play of this game.
First play. Block for each other, run, hit everybody, have fun.
Return on three. [All] One, two, three, RETURN!
With everything that's happened, we are the family that sports brings together.
On the field, we like having fun. Off the field, stuff happens
and it brings you together.
So we always try to look out for each other instead of letting it divide us.
I want to be known in the community as a teacher, as a coach, as a father.
I want to be known as that person.
I didn't need to get shot for that to happen.
I'm moving forward. This year's begun. I've got a great group of kids.
The trust is there. I know some teachers—they're still struggling with it
but it's a chapter of my story now. And it won't be separated
as much as I would want to be.
I'm just gonna continue to do my job the best I can and, you know
everything else will take care of itself.
- [Child] It's the cow!
- That is the cow. Can't see it from here.
Oh my goodness! No way.
- What's goin' on?
- No way. How are you?
- All good.
- I have been set up. Man, come on in, come on in.
- I heard about the story, and it definitely takes
a lotta heart and a lotta, I mean, you sacrificed. Most definitely.
So I just wanted to come and, you know, show a little appreciation for that.
- I'm floored right now. Can't believe you'd take the time out to do this.
- Yeah, man.
- Can you say hi, Jameson? He plays football. You think you can tackle him?
[Laughing]
- He waited till I turned around.
Is this Tennessee?
Tennessee, Auburn and Florida, yeah.
When did you start playing football?
- I started playing football...my sister
took me to the park in third grade, and I wasn't good at all.
- No?
- Yeah, I was...
- Didn't work?
- Nah, I was playing, like, left guard.
I was just like the kid you just throw out there, like, here's your jersey and--
- Just gettin' in the way a little bit
- Yeah.
- How many plays do they usually bring into the huddle?
- Well, you know our quarterback's pretty good.
- Yeah, that's why I'm wondering.
- So, our playbook is crazy. And Sean'll be like, I see it.
I had a dream about it, like, "I see it. It's gonna happen just like this."
- He's got visions.
- And then on Sunday when it happens just like that
you be like, "Man, this dude. He's really smart."
That's why I like playing offense. It's like, defense, is so—you gotta anticipate so much.
- Mhmm.
- Offense is more, like, you gotta anticipate a little bit to a certain extent
- Offense is more, like, you gotta anticipate a little bit to a certain extent just based off coverage and stuff, but shoot, you always kinda, like, got the one-up.
just based off coverage and stuff, but shoot, you always kinda, like, got the one-up.
- You got that control.
- Yeah, you got control.
- So you're a celebrity in this town now.
- In this town is the key word.
- [Laughing]
- In this town.
- In this town, now.
- Yeah.
- How's that been?
- I mean, it's been whatever.
People are just, you know, wanting to say hi.
And people come over and over and over and—
- That's the bad part. Like, you can't enjoy, like, being a regular person.
- Right.
- And mine's all tailored around one event
- Yeah
- So every time I talk to somebody, they wanna bring it up.
- Yeah, it's about...yeah.
- And it's, like, you know what? It's not one of my favorite days
- Exactly. You gotta just go past it.
- Right.
- I can only imagine, like, what you had to deal with.
- I'm not a what-if kind of person.
- Yeah.
- So life's gonna do what life's gonna do.
- Of course, yeah. That's how I live.
- You can prepare the best you want to, and life's gonna throw you a curveball.
- Yeah.
- And you can swing and miss or you can swing and hit a home run.
- You just gotta control what you can control
- You just gotta trust that people are gonna do the right thing.
- Yeah. That's crazy, though, man.
- Appreciate you letting me in your house and just kickin' it for a little bit.
- Appreciate you taking the time to come here.
- No doubt, man.
- That means a lot.
Hey.
- To talk football with someone who understands football
and really knows football is something I very rarely get to do.
It was a lot of fun, talking about, you know, the ins and outs
and, you know, situational stuff like that.
I mean, I lit up like a little kid at Christmas when I opened the door.
- Appreciate you.
- Take care of yourself. Have fun.
- Will do.
-This is Carmelo Anthony.
Thanks for watching.
To meet more heroes, go to breal.bleacherreport.com.