‘I just kept hugging her’: Idaho teacher recounts how she disarmed Rigby school shooter

An Idaho middle school teacher who disarmed a school shooter earlier this month recounted the experience publicly for the first time on Wednesday in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Krista Gneiting, a math teacher at Rigby Middle School in East Idaho, said she was reviewing for a final with students when she heard a gunshot. She said she looked out of her classroom into the hallway and saw custodian Jim Wilson, who was later identified as one of three people injured in the shooting. Then she heard two other gunshots.

Gneiting told “Good Morning America” that’s when she told her class to get ready to run to the nearby Rigby High School.

“I just told my students ... ‘You’re gonna run hard, you’re not going to look back, and now is the time to get up and go,’” Gneiting said.

The teacher said she heard a boy in the hallway exclaim that he had been shot. As she checked on him, she saw the sixth-grade girl who has since been charged in the shooting. The girl was holding a handgun.

“I just knew that when I saw that gun, I had to get the gun,” Gneiting said in the interview.

She said she was taken aback at first but tried to calmly approach the girl.

“I looked at her and just quietly said, ‘Are you the shooter?’” Gneiting recalled.

She said she put her hand over the girl’s hand and slowly pulled the gun away before pulling the child into an embrace.

“After I got the gun, I just pulled her into a hug because I thought, ‘This little girl has a mom somewhere that doesn’t realize she’s having a breakdown and she’s hurting people,’” Gneiting said.

She also called 911 on her cellphone and stayed with the alleged shooter until police arrived.

“After a little while, the girl started talking to me and I could tell she was really unhappy,” Gneiting said.

She said the girl complied with police when they arrived and was arrested without incident.

Gneiting told the program that she hopes the girl gets the help she needs and that the community can forgive the girl.



All three of the shooting victims were said to sustain non-life-threatening injuries. Fundraisers for each of their medical expenses have been set up on GoFundMe.



Police have not identified the alleged shooter but said she remains in custody and has been charged in the incident.