Originally posted by Icabod:
Here's the update:
"When a longtime Mattoon High School teacher saw a student raise a gun in the crowded cafeteria, she said that one thought came to mind: “You’re not going to do this to my kids.”
Angela McQueen, a math and physical education teacher at the school for 17 years, rushed over and subdued the student, she said in recounting the chain of events that took place on Sept. 20.
“I sprang into action because I looked over and I saw a student pull a gun out and he was aiming it at students to his right,” she said in a video released Thursday by the Illinois Education Association. “I immediately lunged at the gun and I got the gun up in the air as quick as I could, as fast as I could because I didn’t want him to hit the students.”
The boy fired shots as McQueen tried to disarm him, she said.
One student suffered a gunshot wound and another had minor injuries suffered while leaving the building, said Bridget Shanahan, spokeswoman for the Illinois Education Association.
Both students have returned to school, and the shooting suspect is currently detained, she said. The suspect has been charged with one count of aggravated battery with a firearm, the association said in a news release.
Shanahan declined to release further details about the suspect. The Coles County state’s attorney could not be immediately reached.
McQueen, 40, said her instincts kicked in when she saw the student raising the gun.
“In that moment, you don’t really think. You just react. To me, it’s almost like the mama bear instinct. I don’t have kids of my own right now, but it’s the instinct of, ‘You’re not going to do this to my kids,’” McQueen said. “These are still my kids — even though I don’t know every single kid in there.”
She was honored by city, school district and law enforcement officials on Thursday at a school reception.
To the local leaders, her actions were a stunning act of heroism in the usually quiet school of 1,000 students about 180 miles south of Chicago.
“We are forever grateful to Angela for her courageous actions that saved the lives of our kids. She was a ray of light in our darkest hour,” Superintendent Larry Lilly said in the release.
Mattoon police Chief Jeff Branson had praised McQueen’s quick response at a news conference after the shooting.
“Had the teacher not responded as quickly as she had, I think the situation would have been a lot different,” he said."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...-20171130-story.html 
