Substitute Teacher Hailed as Hero for Saving Students During New Mexico High School Shooting
A substitute teacher has been hailed as a hero for leading her class to safety during a New Mexico high school shooting that claimed the lives of two students this week, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
On Thursday, a former student at Aztec High School gunned down two students on the campus before taking his own life.
In a statement previously obtained by PEOPLE from the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, the victims of the shooting were identified as Francisco Fernandez and Casey Marquez, who were reportedly a football player and cheerleader at Aztec, respectively.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, after 73-year-old substitute teacher Kathleen “Katie” Potter excused Fernandez to go the restroom, she heard shots being fired.
“It was a pop-pop-pop,” she said. “I looked out to see, which was probably stupid.”
After she heard the shots, Potter said she saw custodian Thomas Hill yelling that there was an active shooter, so she moved the students in her classroom to an office next door, barricading the door shut with a sofa because she did not have a key to lock it. She then instructed her students to get down on the floor.
Potter then claimed that the active student entered the classroom she and her students had just left and began firing into the walls. Fortunately, none of the students were hit.
She said that the shooting lasted for about five minutes.
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Potter — a retired school psychologist — said she was thankful she knew what to do, having gone through numerous active shooter lockdown drills during her 25-year career. “It kind of, instinctually, kicked in,” she said.
San Juan Country Sheriff Ken Christesen confirmed Potter’s account, according to the Washington Post, and called both the substitute teacher and Hill heroes during a news conference Friday morning.
“These people are true heroes right here in our community,” Christesen said. “In every one of these things someone steps up and does the right thing.”
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