Heroic Coach Disarms Student Gunman Attempting to Kill Himself, Earns Congressional Medal of Honor

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Football coach and security guard Keanon Lowe, of Parkrose High School in Portland, Oregon, has received the 2020 Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic role in disarming a student who brought a loaded shotgun to campus with fatal intentions.

After Lowe was alerted on May 17, 2019, that senior Angel Granados-Diaz had been making suicidal statements following a breakup, the former Oregon University wide receiver talked the student into giving up the gun and then stayed with him until police arrived.

“I saw a scared young man, that’s the first thing I saw,” Lowe told PAC-12 Networks.

Reflecting on the scary situation, he wrote on Twitter, “When confronted with the test the universe presented me with, I didn’t see any other choice but to act. Thank God, I passed.” In addition to preventing then-18-year-old Granados-Diaz from killing himself, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society commends Lowe for “saving the lives of the students and faculty of Parkrose High school.”

Granados-Diaz, who wore a black trench coat to conceal the weapon, planned to shoot himself with the shotgun at school to spare his mother finding his body at home, his attorney said, according to OPB. Lowe went looking for the student in the classroom where he was supposed to be, but Granados-Diaz was hiding in the bathroom.

The gunman later walked into his classroom and attempted to fire on himself unsuccessfully, students told Oregon Live. Then Lowe finally grabbed him and took the gun away. Lowe explained at a press conference at the Moda Center, according to KATU, “In a fraction of a second, I analyzed everything really fast, saw the look in his face, looked at his eyes, looked at the gun, I realized it was a real gun and then my instincts just took over.”

Once Lowe had wrestled the gun away and given it to a fellow teacher, he found himself embracing the student in his arms, partially to restrain him, partially to comfort him. “It was emotional for him, it was emotional for me. In that time, I felt compassion for him,” the coach said. “I let him know that I was there for him. I told him I was there to save him. I was there for a reason, and this is a life worth living.”

Keanon Lowe attends CNN Heroes at the American Museum of Natural History on Dec. 8, 2019, in New York City. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

“God’s will” helped him be in the right place at the right time,” said Lowe, who after his college football career went on to work for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers as an analyst.

“I don’t know if hero is the right word, but the universe works in mysterious ways, and I was meant to be in that classroom,” he added. “I was meant to stop a tragedy.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, Lowe was regarded as a hero by many and invited to CNN’s 2019 Heroes All-Star Tribute.

More recently, on March 25, 2020, Lowe was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for civilians, “for his courageous act,” according to the CMH Society. Though the ceremony has been put on hold due to the current virus restrictions, Lowe will receive the honor alongside a North Carolina student who gave his own life in defending fellow students from a campus shooter.