Illinois School Resource Officer Interrupts School Shooter

Dixon High School's School Resource Officer has been called a hero after interrupting a student who fired several shots in the school.

• By Sydny Shepard
• May 18, 2018

Roughly 180 students were in the gymnasium of Dixon High School in Illinois practicing for graduation at around 8 a.m. on Wednesday when authorities say a 19-year-old senior came out of the bathroom with a gun and started firing.

School resource officer Mark Dallas was quick to the scene, rushing the shooter in an effort to protect the students, including his own son.

Seniors inside the gym told local reporters that they heard four to five shots ring out and the SRO yell, "Hey, stop." Students barricaded themselves in classrooms as they had been trained to do, others ran from the building as fast as they can.

As the shooter was running away, he fired at Dallas, who returned fire, hitting the suspect in the shoulder. Dallas then arrested the suspect.

School officials and law enforcement praised Dallas as a hero. Without his quick thinking and fearlessness, "much worse things would have happened" that day.

"Our kids did a fantastic job, our staff did a fantastic job, our resource officer did a fantastic job," school principal Mike Grady said at a news conference. "It was a situation where this is the best possible outcome we could have."

The mother of the shooter says she had no idea he had possession of a gun, which belonged to her, but was kept at her 91-year-old grandfather's house. The suspect has been charged with three felony counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and remains at an area hospital on 24-hour watch.