Portland’s Keanon Lowe stopped a potential school shooting
Surveillance video from Parkrose High School shows Parkrose coach and security guard Keanon Lowe holding a student in an embrace after disarming him of a shotgun during an incident in May 2019. Lowe handed the gun to another teacher who is seen taking it away from the scene.
Disney is making a movie about Keanon Lowe, the Black football coach and security guard from Portland credited with stopping a school shooting at Parkrose High School in May of 2019.
Keanon Lowe, the former Parkrose High School coach and security guard who disarmed a distraught student at the school in May 2019 to avert a school shooting.
Lowe prevented a potential tragedy when he disarmed, and then hugged, a young student who brought a gun to school.
According to a brief announcement on Thursday, Disney is making the movie about Lowe and the day he was able to peaceably confront the 18-year-old student who entered a classroom with a shotgun.
Lowe received national praise for delicately and successfully disarming the student in a powerful display of compassion.
He was able to take the gun from the student and hand it to another staff member. By the time officers arrived at the scene, Lowe had detained the student in the hallway and comforted him with a hug. Thanks to his quick action, no shots were fired that day.
"When confronted with the test the universe presented me with, I didn't see any other choice but to act. Thank God, I passed," Lowe said after the incident.
The movie will be the latest recognition for Lowe’s hero status. Over the past year, he has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor Citizen Honor, was selected as a CNN Hero and was named one of TIME Magazine's Heroes of the Year.
Lowe, who grew up in Portland and was a star football player at the University of Oregon, was recently hired by the UCLA football coaching staff as an offensive analyst.