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Teacher Tackles Gunman in Student Attack

2 shot before math instructor leaps on shooter
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 24, 2010 1:44 AM CST
Teacher Tackles Gunman in Student Attack
School bus driver Steve Potter helped hold a shooting suspect after he was tackled by a math teacher yesterday outside Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, Colo.   (AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)

A gutsy math teacher tackled a gunman as he reloaded his high-powered assault rifle to fire on another student in an attack on a Colorado middle school yesterday. Two teens already lay wounded outside the suburban Denver school when David Benke jumped the shooter. "He was trying to rack another round, so I grabbed him," said Benke, a 6-foot-5 former college basketball player.

Witness said before the attack the gunman walked up to a male and female student and asked: "Do you guys go to this school?" When the teens said they did, he shot them. The wounded students are expected to survive, reports AP. Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood, 32, was held by Benke and a school bus driver until police arrived. Investigators haven't yet determined his connection to the school. The shootings occurred just miles from the Columbine High School, scene of one of the deadliest serial school assaults in US history.
(More crime stories.)

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