Teacher who fled St Louis mass shooter discovers own son among victims
‘I saw a massive hole in his pant leg and all I could think of was, ‘My God, what did he get shot with?’’
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Teacher Manfret McGhee survived the St Louis school shooting with his son, who was shot during the ordeal.
Mr McGhee was forced to run for his life as he was narrowly missed by a bullet in the hallway of the school.
He serves as the Dean of Arts at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School where his son Anthony, 16, was shot on Monday.
Anthony was in health class and Mr McGhee was in a meeting when the shooting began.
“I stepped into the hallway to find out a little more about what was going on and at that moment the shooter was in the hallway and fired a shot at myself and another coworker,” Mr McGhee told KSDK.
The local news station spoke to the teacher about 20 minutes after Anthony left surgery at around 8pm on Monday.
“In most of the tragedies I’ve seen play out on TV in many parts of the country, their outcomes have been much more severe than our outcome. I need to let everyone know that St Louis Public Schools and the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s response time was crucial to this not being worse than it was,” he said. “What I saw today was not normally what I have seen in these situations.
“The quickness of the response was crucial,” he added.
Speaking about his son, Mr McGhee said “when I first saw him, I saw a massive hole in his pant leg and all I could think of was, ‘My God, what did he get shot with?’”
“I wore a suit to work this morning, so I took my belt off to stop some of the bleeding,” he added.
The teacher recounted his son’s story of what had happened.
“They were in the classroom, and the classroom was locked per our policy and the shooter shot some glass out on the door, reached in and unlocked the door, came in the room and started firing rounds in the room,” he told KSDK. “My son did not jump out the window, but he helped some students get out of the window.”
“I had to hold it together for him, I had to be strong for him,” Mr McGhee said, referring to his son.
The teacher, who has been at the school for over 13 years, said he remembered Harris, who graduated in 2021.
“He was a somewhat quiet student, kind of like a gamer. He was into video games,” he said.
Teacher Jean Kuczka was shot and killed on Monday.
“She had worked there longer than I had, and I’ve known her all this time,” Mr McGhee told KSDK. “I just saw her Monday morning on her way into work.
“She was a beautiful soul ... A wonderful soul,” he added.